Little Flower
by The Silent Rain
Summary: The summer before Lily Evans's seventh year at Hogwarts, Lily's parents are killed by Death Eaters. With nowhere to go, she moves in with the Order of the Phoenix. But this means she'll be seeing a certain James Potter much more than she'd like to...
1. Ordinary Day

_Little Flower_

Chapter One: Ordinary Day

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

_Watching puddles gather rain,  
>There's no better place to lay.<br>She's as fine as dandelions blowing in the wind  
>She's not thinkin' about anything.<em>

_-Vanessa Carlton_

* * *

><p>June 22nd, 1977.<p>

"Hullo, summertime."

Somewhere in England, there was a girl. An extraordinary girl. She was lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling. Her room was dark, save for the early-morning light that radiated through her window. The sky was beginning to shine hues of blue and faded reds through the clouds, and from her open window the redhead could feel the slightest breeze flowing into her room. Birds chirped in the trees outside, but something about their song seemed distant.

She sighed.

She sat up and glanced at the clock sitting on her bedside table. _5:47 AM._

_What,_ Lily Evans thought, _in the name of Merlin am I doing awake so early in the damn morning?_

She closed her eyes and put her head back down on the pillow, pulling the blankets up around her. She stayed like this for twenty minutes until it became obvious that she was not going to be able to fall back asleep. Rolling her eyes at herself, she stood up and stretched. Rubbing awake her emerald green orbs, Lily glanced around her room. Nothing had changed overnight. Her clothes were still strewn all over the floor, her books were still scattered around in various places, and her desk still looked like it had been hit by a rogue tornado.

Lily glared at the mess. _Well, I might as well start my day off right with a bit of housekeeping,_ she thought ruefully. She picked up a long, slender piece of wood from her nightstand, waved it gently, and suddenly her belongings organized themselves, quietly shuffling back into their homes.

Yes, Lily was truly an extraordinary girl. A witch. It was her first day home from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and she already missed school. She just finished up her sixth year of schooling, and the next year would be her seventh and final year at Hogwarts. Her home.

Tossing her wand onto her bed, Lily got dressed and peered into the mirror. Her deep red hair was everywhere and her eyes were bleary. Next to her, an owl hooted softly in its cage.

"Good morning to you too, Portia," Lily mumbled to the creature, reaching through the bars to stroke its head. "Ouch!"

Portia the owl bit her hand. With a quiet, rather annoyed-sounding hoot, she tucked her head under her wing resolutely, going to sleep.

She glared ruefully. "Well, thanks."

* * *

><p>As Lily walked down the stairs of her house for breakfast an hour or so later, she heard the voices of The Beatles emanating from the family's radio. That meant only one thing: her father was up.<p>

Strolling into the kitchen, Lily saw her father reading the newspaper, holding a cup of coffee and humming along to the song on the radio. Blond with dark grey eyes, Lily didn't look very much like her father. He was a tall man, but Lily did not inherit much of his height, standing at a clean 5'4". He looked rather tired, but seemed to be in a good mood.

"Good morning, Dad!" Lily beamed as she glanced around the room. She saw her older sister Petunia glaring out the window on the opposite side of the kitchen, washing a frying pan in the sink.

"Morning, Lily darling," her father replied, reaching over to hug her as she approached. "It's nice to have you around for breakfast again, now that you're back from school!"

A snort came from near the sink.

"Why hello, Petunia," Lily called sarcastically. "It's certainly quite nice to see you again, you know, after all this _time _we've spent apart."

Lily's father looked at her pleadingly. "Stop it, both of you. Before your mother comes down and gets upset, stop it. Petunia, be nice to your sister. Lily, don't _antagonize _her, either."

"But I haven't said a word!" Petunia snapped indignantly, speaking for the first time since Lily appeared. "I'd rather not speak to that raving lunatic unless I have to!"

Their father just groaned and took another swig of coffee. Petunia resented Lily for her magical abilities. Lily never understood why; in the beginning, Petunia had seemed jealous. Now, it just looked like she hated her as a person. _I wish we didn't have to practically be enemies, _Lily thought sadly. _Aren't sisters supposed to share gossip and clothes and makeup?_

Saying nothing, Lily helped herself to a cup of coffee and buttered some toast that her father had already made for her before she came downstairs. She loved her father more than anyone else in her family. He never pried into any of her business the way her mother did, and he always supported her when Petunia turned foul against her. Both of her parents were thrilled when she was accepted to Hogwarts. They felt that magic was a talent, not a problem or a disorder. Petunia, however, constantly mocked Lily, calling her a freak of nature. Lily had long since learned to ignore it after years of verbal abuse, but still, it hurt her to see her sister treat her like she was a piece of dirt.

As Lily sat down at the table with her father, she asked, "Where's mum, anyway? I thought she would be down here by now. She's always up early and I haven't seen her all morning."

Her father rolled his eyes. "She's already out. She told me she needed to run to the grocery store. Something about not having enough milk. She left right before you came down, actually. I'm surprised you didn't hear her leave."

Lily took a bite of her toast. "Well, I hope she gets back soon. I would hate to have to do the rest of the dishes myself," she quipped. As she finished speaking, an sandy-brown owl soared into the room through the open kitchen window above the sink, right where Petunia was standing. She shrieked as it barely missed her head. Perching on the end of Lily's coffee cup, the owl stuck out its leg, to which an envelope was attached.

"That monster almost took out my eye!" Petunia screeched. "My God, Lily, you freaks can't get yourselves some form of communication that maybe _doesn't _involve insane, rabid birds flying through windows without warning? You all insist you're so intelligent but you can't even wave your damn wands and 'bibbity-bobbity-boo' yourselves some magical method into existence?"

Her father sighed. "Calm down, Pet. They're tamed, and owls aren't _stupid._"

His words did nothing to comfort her as she continued her tirade. "I wish you just stayed at school over the summer, too. It would get you out of my hair for once. I swear, what am I going to tell Vernon about you? If you just stayed at that madhouse you say you go to _learn, _I could say you don't even exist. And God, that would be so much better than having to actually deal with you." She threw the frying pan back into the sink and stormed out of the room.

Lily and her father were silent for a moment.

"Well, she's in a good mood, isn't she?" Lily asked drily.

He groaned. "She wasn't exactly enthusiastic that you were coming home, but I wasn't exactly expecting this. Before you came back, I warned her to act civil, but I guess she's planning on ignoring me. She's having that monster boyfriend of hers, Vernon, over for dinner later, so things are only going to get worse." He changed the topic as the owl hopped up and down impatiently on the rim of the coffee cup. "So who's the letter from? Your friends are already up this early in the morning?"

Lily detached the letter from the owl's delicate ankle. She recognized the fancy, loopy script on the envelope before she even opened it. It was addressed, "_To Lily Evans, from Alice Prewett." _She smiled as she tore open the envelope. Alice, a rich, pureblood witch, was her best friend since her first year at Hogwarts, after which they became inseparable. Lily, a Muggle-born with no magical blood from her parents, was still confused over many aspects of the Wizarding World, and never had a girl to talk to other than her sister. Petite and blond, Alice was the sweetest girl in their year and one of the smartest as well, in the same ranks as Lily in all of their classes. Lily read the letter quickly.

_Dear Lily,_

_This summer is already absolutely insufferable without you. I know we said we'd get together at least four times a week this summer, but I miss you already! What do you say we get together and go to Diagon Alley for shopping and ice cream around three? Please say you will! Frank is coming too, and he said that if you agree, he'll bring along some dashing beaux for you. If you like him enough, we can stop for drinks at the Leaky Cauldron. I know you've been so worked up since that nasty breakup with that boy, Davies. Don't let it get to you. We can go out and have some fun. Je t'aime, ma cherie!_

_-Alice_

"It's from Alice," she said with a smile. "She wanted to know if I'd like to go shopping with her and Frank this afternoon. Can I, Dad?"

He smirked. "Oh, I don't know, Lils, are you sure that you don't want to stay for dinner with that whale, Vernon? I know you've been dying to meet him." Lily glared at him teasingly. "Oh, all right, you can go."

Lily threw her arms around him. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

* * *

><p>That afternoon, it was raining outside. Pouring, in fact, in deep contrast to the sunny morning she had woken up to. As Lily gazed out of her bedroom window, she listened to the sound of the forming puddles. She watched as a bird flew past, hiding from the rain in a nearby tree. She sat cross-legged on her bed, staring outside. Dark clouds stretched beyond the horizon as the rain fell steadily. She loved rain and wished it could go on forever. As if in a trance, she watched the passing cars on the quiet street below, their headlights piercing through the water, listening to the sound of the tires flying through puddles. Summer rain was, to her, the most beautiful sensation possible. It was like roses: delicate, warm, fragrant, and fleeting.<p>

Suddenly, Portia hooted and she was jerked out of her reverie. It was 2:30. She needed to start getting ready, or she would be late for her get-together with Alice.

Twirling as she jumped up from her bed, the redhead peered in the mirror. She stared into her own emerald eyes, trying to decide what to do with her hair. After a few minutes of thought, she decided to just throw it into a ponytail.

_Whatever. Whoever is coming along will have to deal with how I look. At least I don't look _too _bad, right? …Right? Oh Merlin, maybe I should do something better than a ponytail. What if he's cute? Or what if he's hideous? Oh, bloody hell…_

Lily tugged her hair out of her ponytail, letting the red mess fall about her shoulders. Whipping out her wand, she pointed it at her hair, muttered a few indistinct words, and her hair sprang into curls. She gazed into the mirror, satisfied. _Good thing I read last month's edition of Witch Weekly…_

A knock came at her door.

"Lily!" a woman's voice came from the other side of the door. "It's almost time for you to leave to meet Alice!"

Lily opened the door to see her mother standing there. Rather petite, her mother had the same red hair that her daughter had, but blue eyes instead. It was always a puzzle to the family where Lily's green orbs had come from. Often her parents joked that it was her magical blood that gave her that unique look.

"You look beautiful, Lily," her mother said with a smile. "But please, remember to keep up on your studies. I mean, I know it's only the first day of summer, but you mustn't forget…"

Lily sighed internally. Her mother cared a lot about education. Even though Lily went to Hogwarts, her mother still wanted her to study normal Muggle subjects like math, history, English, and chemistry. Lily didn't see much of a point to doing it, but since it pleased her mother, she did her best to learn it as well.

"Thanks, mum. And you know I never forget to do my work. Not when I have Alice to compete with, anyway," Lily said with a tinkling laugh.

Her mother smiled. She loved to hear her daughter's laugh.

"I love you, Lily. I know you'll never let me down." She reached over and hugged her daughter tightly. Lily hugged her back. "Have fun today. Now, be back before ten. I don't want you staying out too late. I mean, I know you can defend yourself, but with that man and those criminals you were talking about…"

"Death Eaters?" Lily winced. She had told her parents a bit about the problems in the Wizarding World, but hadn't wanted them to worry. She had glazed over the details, lest they get scared of what was really going on. She figured that what they didn't know, as Muggles, wouldn't hurt them. "Don't worry, mum. Diagon Alley's safe."

"Well, all right dear, but I still want you home by ten." Her mother kissed her on the cheek. "Now hurry up or you'll be late!"

Lily dashed down the stairs to the door. "Bye, Mum! Bye, Dad! Love you!" Her father emerged from the living room and hugged her goodbye. She stared up the stairs and whispered quietly, "Goodbye, Petunia."

No response came. It was possible that she didn't hear her, but if even if she had, Lily knew she wouldn't have responded.

Lily walked out the front door, waving goodbye to her parents. Little did she know that this would be the last time she ever did so.

* * *

><p>Lily ran into the Leaky Cauldron at 3:10. She was late.<p>

"Hello, Tom," she said, greeting the bartender. He had about two teeth left, and grinned happily at her.

"Nice ta see ye again, Miss Evans," he smiled. "Are ye lookin' for someone?"

An arm was suddenly thrown around Lily's shoulders.

"Why, yes indeed she is!" came a delicate voice from next to the redhead. Alice Prewett, blonde hair flying, grinned like a Cheshire cat. Next to her stood Frank Longbottom, her boyfriend since 5th year, smirking about something. He was tall, with golden blond hair, and all of the girls in their year at Hogwarts considered him to be one of the best catches possible. "We've been waiting for this damn girl for ten minutes, I'll have you know, Tommy!"

Lily laughed. "Get off of me, Prewett, or you'll be getting Frank jealous."

"I can't exactly complain about this, you know, Evans." There was a twinkle in Frank's eye. "Most men wouldn't complain about two girls in…you know…close contact…"

"Oh, you!" Alice lightly pushed Frank with a girlish giggle. "Don't be so disgusting!"

"So where's this mysterious date you were supposed to bring me, Frank?" Lily asked. "I'm not very good at blind dates, and I'd really like to know—"

Alice winced, and Frank's smirk widened. "You'll see soon, Lily," Frank said. "You'll thank me later for this. Trust me."

"So, erm, where is he, then?"

"Later than you, if you can believe it," Frank sighed. "He's definitely coming, though. This is something he would _never _pass up."

Alice cringed even more and grabbed Lily's arm, dragging her to the other end of the bar. "I tried to talk him out of this, honestly I did," she said in hushed tones to her best friend. "Please, please, _please_ don't be angry with me for this. There was nothing I could do. I—"

"But who _is _it?" Lily demanded, growing impatient. "How do you know I'll be annoyed? Honestly, it can't be _that _bad."

The door to the Leaky Cauldron opened with a jingle of the bells attached to the door, but Lily didn't look up. She was staring at Alice, who looked incredibly uncomfortable. "I should have warned you beforehand," Alice muttered. "Look at who just walked in the door."

It was James Potter, the boy that Lily Evans couldn't stand more than anyone in the entire world.

* * *

><p><em>Author's note: Do tell me what you think. Seriously, anything would be great. I love reviews and I haven't been in the habit of writing much lately, so this is my attempt to get back into it. So, yes, no, good, bad, horrible, fantastic, please tell me in a review. Much love to my readers, if I'm lucky enough to have any.<em>


	2. Darkness Rising

Chapter Two: Darkness Rising

_Dying  
>Is an art, like everything else.<br>I do it exceptionally well. _

_I do it so it feels like hell.  
>I do it so it feels real.<br>I guess you could say I've a call._

_-Sylvia Plath_

* * *

><p>Lily had no idea what to say. She wasn't sure if she should start yelling, walk out, or continue standing there in complete shock at the fact that Frank Longbottom, her best friend's boyfriend, decided to put her up with James Potter on what was, in essence, a blind date. She knew that the pair were friends, but she had no idea that they would do something like <em>this.<em> Lily blinked a few times.

"Well, uh, hello, Potter," she muttered, staring at the rather dirty floor of the Leaky Cauldron, mentally cursing Frank for throwing her into this.

"Hi Evans," he responded cheerfully. He seemed to be completely comfortable and at ease, despite Lily's awkwardness. "I guess you didn't know about this either?"

"About what?" Lily asked stupidly. _I have no idea what's going on. Do I even care at this point? Like things could get any worse. Damn it, Frank…_

"Oh, about us being the awkward extra pair on Longbottom and Prewett's date," James answered, smiling as ever. Frank stood next to him, grinning like an idiot. "All this wanker here told me was that I'd be going with a pretty girl to ice cream with him and his girlfriend."

Lily ignored the compliment, glaring at Frank, and spoke to James without looking at him. "No, Potter, I'm afraid I didn't know, because if I did, I would most certainly not have come." Frank only smirked more and Lily had to restrain the urge to smack him. The only thing that held her back was the fact that he was Alice's boyfriend.

"Lily! Bathroom! Now!" Alice grabbed Lily's arm and dragged her out of the room. When they reached the bathroom, she shot Lily a furious look. "I know you're upset about this, but can you please be _civil_?"

This was the angriest that Lily had ever seen Alice get in her entire life. Alice was always the calm one between the pair of them. Lily had a temper to match her fiery hair, while Alice was more of a calming presence on her. When Alice got angry, Lily knew there was a serious issue.

"I've been getting along with him as much as I could," Lily snapped. "I can be friendly with him if I have to, but I draw the damn line at going on a _date _with him."

Alice took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Don't think of it as a date. Think of it as…"

"Think of it as _what? _What on earth am I supposed to think of it as, if not as of a _date_?"

Alice was ready to walk out of the bathroom and just leave Lily standing in there, alone. Lily had recently broken up with her boyfriend, Johnson Davies, who just graduated that year. They hadn't been dating for a very long time, only around four months, but Alice had found out that he was cheating on Lily with some fifth year Ravenclaw girl, and immediately told her best friend. Lily immediately got into a screaming match with him, and their nasty breakup was the talk of the school for weeks. It was a comfort that Davies graduated and she would never have to deal with him in school again, but the thought of him still disgusted her.

"Think of it as a rebound from that prick, Davies," Alice said slowly. She saw that Lily was about to protest, so she quickly continued. "Okay, maybe not a rebound. But honestly, this is childish. If he acts like a jerk, then all right, you can yell at him. But he's been perfectly nice to you so far. He's done nothing that would make you treat him like this."

Lily closed her eyes and rested her forehead on the bathroom wall. Exhaling slowly, she tried to compose herself. She knew Alice was right and that she was overreacting. "Sorry, Alice," Lily mumbled, eyes still shut. "I'm just…caught off-guard, I guess."

Alice patted Lily's back. The Alice she knew was back. "It's okay, doll. I understand. Just take a minute to breathe, go back out there, and act like nothing happened. I mean, it certainly wouldn't hurt to _apologize _to him, but just calm down and be nice. I know you're upset."

Lily took a deep breath and, after a moment, picked her head up off the wall. She could do this. "Right. I'm ready. Let's go."

Striding back out to the bar at the Leaky Cauldron arm in arm, Alice and Lily saw the two boys still sitting at the bar, chatting animatedly with Tom. Frank glanced up and saw the pair approaching.

"Oh, look who's back," he drawled. "Took you girlies long enough."

Alice serenely glided into the barstool next to her boyfriend, while shooting Lily a look. _Sit next to James. Now._

Lily complied with what she knew was Alice's wish and rather grumpily sat down in the stool next to the handsome young man that was James Potter. Tall with hazel eyes, glasses, and jet-black hair, James was undeniably handsome. His hair seemed incapable of lying flat, giving him a rather unkempt look all the time. It had always been that way; in their younger years, it had made him look like a little boy who had gotten into mischief, or like he had just hopped off of a broomstick. Now, the mess looked roguish. Something about it made him look older. Lily always knew he was good-looking, but she never wanted to acknowledge it. Throughout their years at Hogwarts, he was nothing but an arrogant bully who thought he was on top of the world.

"We're so sorry," Alice said sweetly, leaning in and touching Frank's arm with a radiant smile. "We ran into some…issues…that needed to be addressed."

Frank gave a knowing grin. "I figured. James and I were wondering if we'd be waiting here all day, you know."

Jumping up from the stool, Alice grabbed Frank's hand. "Well then, let's go! It's already 3:30 and we've done absolutely nothing but sit at a bar and talk! Let's not waste an entire _afternoon_ like this!"

She and Frank ran out of the pub, leaving James and Lily behind to follow. James got up and looked at Lily.

"Well, let's go," he said with a smile.

"Let's," she replied rather shortly, and the two hurried out after the giggling couple, leaving Tom at the bar, shaking his head in bewilderment at how strange these young people acted these days.

* * *

><p>Sitting outside of Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor at sunset, four seventeen year-olds were laughing.<p>

"That's hilarious," Lily snorted with laughter, clutching her cone of treacle tart-flavored ice cream. "Black managed to turn him into a tortoise and get away with it?"

"Of course," James replied, smirking as he finished off his Butterbeer ice cream. "Sirius has…a way with this sort of thing. He turned Goyle into a porpoise, too. He decided to make all of the animals rhyme, you know. Tortoise, porpoise, you get the idea."

"Your group is really something else, Potter," Alice said with a grin. "You should teach us ladies some of those hexes you know. Never know when they could come in handy."

"I'd be scared that Evans here would test a few of them out on me," James answered, slipping a sly arm around the redhead next to him. She didn't protest, still giggling like mad. "That would get pretty damn ugly, pretty fast."

"Don't make me try some on you right now, Potter," Lily teased, pushing him lightly. "If you make one more move, I might have to jinx you into the next decade."

James raised both of his hands. "I'm unarmed! I'm an innocent man!"

"Innocent, my arse," Alice laughed. "Can we get a move on yet? I need to buy a new set of robes and I want to go to the Leaky Cauldron for drinks after this!"

"The queen has spoken," Frank proclaimed dramatically. "Your wish is my command." With that, he lifted his girlfriend off the bench. Shrieking with giggles, Alice was carried off by Frank back to the sidewalk.

Lily was relieved by how well the evening was turning out. Frank and Alice were happy together, and James was being completely nice to her, teasing her lightly as they bantered like friends. Had he always been this way? If she had given him a chance before in the past, would she have seen this side of him? She felt a twang of regret in her heart. _Maybe I was a little too hard on him after all these years…_

* * *

><p>By eight that evening, Alice had purchased her robes, Lily had bought some Chocolate Frogs to give to her parents, and the boys had willingly paid for everything that the two girls wanted. The four strode into the Leaky Cauldron, happy as ever. Tom was working behind the bar, and the pub was very crowded. Frank and James made their way up to the counter while the girls found themselves a table in a quieter corner of the establishment.<p>

"See, Lily? I told you that it wouldn't be so bad!" Alice chirped animatedly. "Honestly, he's so much different than he used to be in fifth year."

"I know, I noticed," Lily acquiesced. "I realized I've been a bit hard on him. But before you get any ideas, I'd really rather not take this any further than—"

"We're back, ladies!" Frank shouted over the din in the pub, clutching a tray with four glasses of what appeared to be Firewhiskey.

"What is this you've gotten us, Frank? Firewhiskey?" Alice looked amused. "You must be trying to get us drunk."

"Hell, we're seventeen! We're old enough to drink, we should take advantage of it!"

"Cheers," Lily said, lifting her glass.

The group clinked glasses, and Frank downed his in one shot. Alice raised her eyebrows at her boyfriend, and he shrugged.

"I've been practicing." With that, he stood up and walked back up to the bar to get more drinks.

"Damned alcoholic," Alice groaned as Lily rolled her eyes. "I've got to go after him before he gets himself wildly drunk. Plus, I need a Butterbeer to wash that down. I feel like I drank a bottle of broomstick polish." She sauntered off in the direction that Frank went, leaving James and Lily at the table, alone together.

Lily had felt genuinely comfortable around James when Alice and Frank were there too, but now that they were gone, she felt like she had no idea what to say. She stared down at the table awkwardly, empty glass in hand. She certainly liked him much more than she had before, that much she knew, but she still had absolutely no clue what she had in common with him that they could talk about. Come to think of it, he looked a little uncomfortable, too…

James broke the silence first.

"So Evans, how's your summer been so far? I mean, it's only the first day, but…"

"It's been all right," she replied, cursing the idiotic small talk that they were stuck making. "Kind of screwed up, though. I tried sleeping in this morning, but honestly I'm still so used to waking up early that I was up before six. It was awful. And Portia, my owl, was in a completely god-awful mood this morning. I let her outside before I left, even though it was pouring out in the middle of the afternoon, just so she'd stop hooting at me. And my sister's being an annoying bitch like always—" Lily stopped, blushing. She was ranting to Potter about her day, like he cared about her problems, and she sounded like she was looking for attention. They hardly even talked normally, and here she was, sitting alone with him in a dimly lit bar, whining to him. She was mortified.

James nodded sympathetically, either completely oblivious to Lily's embarrassment or choosing to ignore it. "I know how you feel, Evans. Except I was actually able to sleep in this morning. I've been exhausted from school and all, I thought I was going to go mad. I slept until around 10 this morning, and my parents were yelling at me to wake up. I was still tired, to be honest I was supposed to be getting together with a few friends this afternoon, but I decided this would be more interesting." His hazel gaze bored into her deeply, with some sort of emotion that Lily couldn't explain. Before she could say anything, he continued. "So what happened with your sister? I didn't know you had one. Surely she isn't as pretty as you," he said with a wink, lightening the mood.

Lily snorted. "She's a cow. Or an ostrich, actually, with that hideously long neck she has. Her name's Petunia and she's a complete bitch. She hates me for being a witch and told me she would be happier if I never came home. We've got a loving relationship, really."

James looked outraged. "She _hates _you? She's your _sister_! And how can she hate _you_? She's got to be mad!"

At that moment, Alice and Frank returned to the table. Or, moreover, Alice returned with Frank in tow. She was clutching his arm as he flailed along behind her, like a mother hauling out her disobedient child who tried to pocket everything in a candy store. Lily snickered at the sight.

"Alice, calm down!" Frank griped. "It was only a Firewhiskey!"

Alice glared at him severely, baby blues narrowed with annoyance. "_A_ Firewhiskey? You bought three and drank all of them in about ten seconds."

"That's my man!" James high-fived a rather drunken Frank.

"Don't encourage him!"

"Awww, but Allie-babe, you love me," Frank slurred.

Alice sighed. "You're going home. Come on." She looked at James and Lily. "I'm sorry to cut the evening short. You two can stay if you'd like. I really don't want to make you two leave so early just because I have to deal with Frank here."

James glanced at Lily. "Do you want to stay?" he asked her.

She hesitated. He hurriedly continued. "I mean, if you don't want to, seriously it's fine, you know, if you have somewhere to go—"

"No, I'll stay," she interrupted him. "I'd love to, actually."

Alice raised her eyebrows slightly. She hadn't expected this sudden change in Lily's attitude towards James, but she wasn't about to complain. She made a mental note to ask her best friend what was going on between her and a certain black-haired boy with gorgeous eyes…

* * *

><p>Even after Alice and Frank left, Lily and James were still sitting at the table in the corner in the Leaky Cauldron. He had ordered a couple more Butterbeers for them, and they were talking animatedly.<p>

"So what is it about Quidditch that's so exciting?" Lily asked. "I'm rubbish at flying. I go to Quidditch games, obviously, but I really don't find it that thrilling."

James sighed overdramatically. "Evans, my dear, you cannot begin to understand," he proclaimed poetically. "'Tis an art! To soar, higher than the clouds!" He began waving his arms theatrically as people around them began to stare curiously. "The beauty of it! It is indescribable!"

Despite the attention that the couple was getting from nearby patrons, Lily laughed hysterically. "You're a character, Potter. I guess it's different when you actually play. I hardly even know the rules, to be honest. Alice does, because of Frank and all, and she's tried to explain it but I don't really have the attention span to learn more about it."

"You're the smartest girl in our year and you don't have the attention span?" James asked amusedly. "That's bullocks, and you know it. I'm a Chaser, as I'm sure you know, and captain of the team this year, even though Frank's the best keeper we've had in years and he knows it. You should have seen the look on his face when he found out I got the position and not him." James snorted at the memory. "He looked like he was going to _cry._"

"That's Frank for you. He's a great guy, but _Merlin, _he always has to get what he wants."

"He's a little arrogant," conceded James. "Not like I should really be talking, though."

Lily winced. She herself had always called him arrogant, conceited, and fatheaded. She realized now that even if he was like that a couple years ago, he was hardly like that now. "Well, you're really not that bad, Potter."

"Is that so, Evans?" James cocked an eyebrow. He didn't give it more comment. "Well, as _captain _of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, I'll make sure you understand all there is to know about Quidditch."

"Is that a promise, Potter?" Lily smiled at him. The beautiful grin he gave her in return made her chest flutter in a way she could hardly explain.

"It is if you let me, Evans." He paused for a moment, looking into her bottle-green eyes. After a moment, he glanced away. He changed the subject. "It's 9:45 already. Do you want to walk around for a bit?"

Lily blinked a couple times. She forgot where she was for a moment, taken away by the intense hazel of his eyes. "Oh. Of course. That…that would be nice."

The pair got up and walked out of the Leaky Cauldron, waving goodbye to Tom, who watched the couple as they walked out the door. Hadn't they been fighting a few hours earlier?

The two stepped out onto the Muggle London street, glancing around at their surroundings. The rain of the afternoon was gone completely, and the sky was clear. The stars shone brightly overhead and the crescent moon glittered a brilliant white. The street was surprisingly empty for an evening, even on a Wednesday. Only a couple nondescript people hurried by on the other side of the road. They walked down the street together, silent.

After a few minutes of complete silence between them, Lily finally spoke. "You know, my mum was worried when I went out today."

"Why?"

"Because of You-Know-Who," she replied. "My parents are Muggles, you know. I honestly didn't want to tell them about what was going on, but I figured that…if…anything happened, they should know what about the problems."

"Call him 'Voldemort.'" James's reply was swift and almost harsh.

Lily was taken aback. "Well, you don't have to snap at me," she responded rather coldly. "It's not like I'm the only one that says it. Do you yell at everyone that calls him that, or is it just me?"

"No, no, that's not it." His tone softened and became much gentler. "It's just…his name isn't You-Know-Who. It's _Voldemort. _Being scared of saying his name just gives him more power. He feeds off of fear. Isn't avoiding saying his name just giving him more of the terror that he wants us to feel? He's a madman, everyone knows that, and I know people are scared, but hiding away from what his name really is and who he is doesn't fix anything."

Lily peered up at him. "Are you…scared? Of him?" Somehow, she still couldn't fully bring herself to say his name, but she forced herself to. "Vol-Voldemort?"

James said nothing for a moment. "I think we all are." He gazed up at the stars. "No one wants to die like that. No one wants to have their family snatched away from them, their lives ruined. I think everyone is scared that the next murder in the newspaper could be them or someone they love." He stopped walking and leaned up against the brick façade of a building. Lily stopped next to him. "Your parents were right to worry about you. It really isn't safe."

"I know. But I don't feel like I'm in danger right now."

"And why is that?" He looked down at her, almost curiously.

What she really wanted to say was, "Because I'm with you." But she didn't, even though something about being around him made her feel safe. Instead she just said, "I don't know. Somehow I feel like…because we're in an open street and all…" _Now I just sound like an idiot…_, she thought.

James didn't speak for a minute. Then he snickered. "Oh yes. Voldemort's really going to spare us because people might find out it was him. Because he probably really cares about that, you know."

She blushed a vibrant shade of pink and hoped to Merlin that it was dark enough for him not to see her face.

"It's okay, I know what you mean," he said seriously, but went on in a teasing voice. "As long as ol' Voldy doesn't swoop down on his Shooting Star broomstick, I think we'll be okay."

"You better watch your mouth, Potter, in case he hears you," she joked lightly.

As they walked on, they passed a homeless woman sitting on a set of steps leading up to a storefront. She wore brightly colored shawls, around her shoulders, though it was a warm summer night. Her gaunt face was cast into relief by a nearby streetlamp. Her eyes were closed and she appeared to be asleep, thick-lensed glasses resting on her nose, but as the two walked by, her eyes sprang open.

"Miss!" she called in a misty voice after Lily. "Please, spare me a coin!"

James grabbed Lily's arm. "Keep walking."

Lily hesitated, glancing back at the woman. She looked pitiful, alone and wrapped in her worn and faded shawls. The woman stared at her with an unfathomable look in her eyes, and Lily wrenched herself out of James's grip and turned back.

"Evans, where the _hell _are you going?"

Lily reached into her pocket and whipped out a few coins, handing them to the beggar woman. "Here. Buy yourself some food," she said kindly. "You're very thin."

The woman said nothing, staring into Lily's eyes. She found that she couldn't tear herself away from the beggar's gaze.

"Evans!"

She heard James shouting her name but ignored him. There was something about this woman. Forcing her eyes away from the beggar's stare, she saw that she accidentally handed her galleons. Magical currency.

_Dammit. Whoops…_

"Lily Evans." This time it was not James speaking. It was the beggar.

"Yes?" Lily narrowed her almond eyes at her. "How do you know me?"

"You are not safe," the woman hissed. "You are not safe, you are not safe." her voice became robotic and trancelike, as if she were hypnotized. She grabbed Lily's hand, dropping the galleons. "You are not safe, you are not safe, you are not—"

Suddenly James appeared in between the two of them. He slapped the woman in the face as she let out a bloodcurdling cry. He forced Lily's hand out of her vise-like grip, taking her arm once more and taking off with her as fast as he could.

They ran at least four blocks from the woman before they finally stopped for breath.

"I take it you know her?" James asked sarcastically, gasping for air.

"Did it _look _like I knew her?" demanded Lily angrily, doubled over.

"Well, she sure as hell knew who you were!"

"That could have had to do with the fact that you were shouting my name to the entire street! And you're so selfish that you don't even want me giving money to a beggar!"

"Because she looked insane! And face it, I was right! And I was only shouting your surname, not your full name!"

"God, well you don't have to _manhandle _me!" Lily was outraged. "I have no idea who the _bloody hell _she was!"

James kicked the wall of a nearby building. "Don't argue with me, Evans." His eyes were on fire. "We've been getting on so well all night, don't bitch me out now."

"_Bitch you out?_ I beg your pardon, you pig, but you're the one that practically assaulted me in the middle of a street!"

He groaned audibly. He didn't want to get in a fight with this girl. It wasn't worth it, and he knew from the past that she was too damn hard to argue with.

"Lily, I'm sorry, okay? I didn't mean to hurt you."

Lily saw the look on his face and knew he was sincere, but she was still angry. "Whatever, Potter. I told my parents I'd be home by ten, and I'm late. I'm going home."

She started walking down the street, away from him, half-expecting him to follow. He didn't.

_Whatever. So that was a wasted night. I guess my summer is getting off to a great start._

_He called me Lily…_

The second James was out of sight behind her, she Disapparated for home.

* * *

><p>Lily Apparated to the end of her street, and the second she got there, she knew that something wasn't quite right. It could have been something about the thickness of the air, or the way the strange, uncharacteristic silence of the street seemed to hang like a pall. Whatever it was, it made Lily take off down the road towards her house.<p>

The second she saw it, her stomach dropped.

Above her home, there was a symbol. The glowing-green image of a grotesque skull with a snake coming out of its mouth was hovering in the sky.

The Dark Mark was over her house. Which could mean only one thing: the Death Eaters were there.

_Please God, don't let this be, please don't…_

Whipping out her wand, she flew to her house. A combination of fury and fear burning a hole in her heart, she arrived at the open door, which hung off the frame on one hinge. The lights were all off. It would be dangerous to go inside, but she did. She was Lily Evans. If her father was dead, she wouldn't dare leave him there.

"_Lumos," _she whispered softly. A light came from the tip of her wand as she walked silently through her house. The entire downstairs floor of the house was in shambles. Chairs were overturned, the tables were ripped apart, and the stuffing of armchairs was everywhere. She closed her eyes and swallowed painfully. No one, alive or dead, was downstairs.

Lily walked up the staircase to the upstairs floor. A bedroom light was on. Her parents' bedroom. Lily put out her wand's light, but kept it raised. Feeling like she was about to throw up, she tiptoed across the floor and threw open the door to see what lay behind it.

Her mother's lifeless body was on the floor in front of her. In another corner was her father. Alive.

"Dad," she whispered. "Dad."

His eyes widened when he saw her, and he suddenly convulsed in pain. The Cruciatus Curse. Laughter filled the house as Lily flew to her father's side.

"Hello, beautiful."

Lily knew that voice. "Hello, Dolohov," she said steadily. "Nice to see you've decided to make something of yourself since you graduated Hogwarts. Killing people is your new employment? Your parents must be proud to see you're a Death Eater. Just what everyone would expect of a _Slytherin._" She spat the last word with all of her heart's anger.

She didn't know what came over her. Inside, she was hysterical. On the outside, she was cool and emotionless.

_Where in hell is Petunia?_

"And just what everyone would, in turn, expect from a Gryffindor." Dolohov stood in the opposite corner of the room with a companion, their faces and bodies obscured by dark, black cloaks. "Only a stupid _bitch _would wander into a house with the Dark Mark over it. Hoping to save some Muggles, you stupid little Mudblood?" He didn't wait for her to respond. "Your father has been here for a very long time. We've been waiting for you to come home, but we've been having ourselves some…entertainment, in the meantime." His companion cackled. It was another man, Lily noted.

"Shall we, Dolohov?" The companion spoke for the first time. Lily recognized his voice from somewhere, but could not place it.

"Yes, we shall."

Lily's body froze. They were going to kill her father. "No!" she screamed. She heard Dolohov's laugh at her. His damned laugh. This was sport for him. Some sort of fun.

"_Avada Kedavra!"_

Green light filled the room as Lily blindly stumbled towards her father. The last expression on his face was one of pure terror.

There was nothing Lily could do. It was too late. She screamed and screamed as she heard the Death Eaters' laughter continue.

Tears rolled down Lily's face as she looked back and forth between the two Death Eaters, her mother's corpse, and her father. _Please let me wake up and find this a dream…_

"You're next, beautiful."

_There's no hope, _she thought.

She sprinted out of the room as she heard spells bouncing off of the walls behind her. She whirled around, wand aloft, and shouted, "_Stupefy!"_

Lily didn't turn around to see if it worked. She closed her eyes and spun around, picturing Hogsmeade in her mind's eye. She knew where she had to go. Her only options were to flee or to die.

The last thing she saw as she disappeared was another flash of green light. There was a cry from the men and all was silent as she Disapparated.

* * *

><p><em>Dead. They're dead, <em>Lily thought stupidly as she sprinted through Hogsmeade. She was running to Hogwarts. _I have to find Dumbledore. Dumbledore…_

Time seemed to stop as she ran. She wasn't sure if it was mere seconds or hours as she ran towards the castle. She reached the castle's front door. It was locked. Cursing Filch, the caretaker, to Hell, she pounded on the door with all of her might.

"Let me in, God dammit!" she yelled, slamming her fists on the door. _What if no one is there?_

After a minute of pounding, the door opened. Professor McGonagall stood in the doorway, staring at her.

"Ms. Evans? How did you get here? What…what is going on?"

"Get out of my way." Lily said emotionlessly.

"What is it?"

"I need to see Dumbledore. NOW!" Her voice rose to a shriek.

Lily pushed her to the side as she sprinted into the castle, up the staircase, and down the corridors until she found Dumbledore's office. He had invited her into an elite organization the week before the end of sixth year. How stupid, stupid, stupid was she to reject the offer…she was selfish. She was stupid. They could have been protected, her mother and her father. None of this would have happened if she wasn't so damned stupid…

"Professor Dumbledore!"

He sat at his desk, glasses perched on his nose, white beard long as ever, filling out paperwork. He looked up as she thundered in like a fiery angel, red hair flying about her. If he was shocked by Lily's sudden appearance, he did not show it.

"Yes, Miss Evans?" His voice was serene as ever, his face expressionless as she threw her hands forward onto his desk, breathing heavily.

"I want to join the Order of the Phoenix."

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note: Review! Please please please! Thank you so much to everyone that reviewedalerted/favorite my story. It means so much to me._


	3. Another Day

Chapter Three: Another Day

_Words like violence break the silence,  
>Come crashing in, into my little world.<br>Painful to me, pierce right through me.  
>Can't you understand?<em>

_Oh, my little girl._

_-Depeche Mode_

* * *

><p>Gryffindor Tower was Lily's home for nine months out of the year since she was eleven years old. It had always made her feel safe and comfortable, but now, even with the morning sunlight filtering through the slightly dusty windows, she felt like something, or perhaps someone, was watching her. Behind the light were the shadows, and that was where the demons and all of her fears were hiding.<p>

Only yesterday she had risen at almost the exact same time to gaze out the window and hear the birds singing. So much had changed over twenty four hours. She had lost everything. Her parents. Her home. Her possessions. Everything seemed to have disappeared.

She had no clothes with her other than the ones she was wearing at that very moment. Without even glancing in the mirror, she rose from her bed in girls' dormitory and strode out of Gryffindor Tower.

The portrait hole door swung shut as she stepped into the corridor outside, and she felt the Fat Lady's eyes on her. The Fat Lady was the woman in the portrait that guarded the entrance to the tower, and surely she had heard what happened to her.

"Miss Evans?" The Fat Lady called after her.

Lily kept walking. She was not in the mood to deal with a gossiping _portrait._

"Miss Evans!" she called again. "Professor Dumbledore would like to see you in his office!"

Lily gave no sign of having heard her, but strode in the direction of his office.

The Fat Lady sighed quietly. _Girls these days,_ she thought to herself. _No respect for their elders…_

* * *

><p>Lily entered Dumbledore's office to see him standing in the doorway, waiting for her.<p>

"Miss Evans," he said pleasedly. "I see that the Fat Lady relayed the message to you."

"Yeah. She did." Lily had no expression whatsoever. Her normally vibrant spirit was almost dead.

"Sit down," he gestured towards a chair that magically appeared next to his desk. "I made some tea for you."

Lily didn't move. "I don't want any."

"But I must insist," he said, a twinkle in his aquatic eyes. "It would do you a world of good."

She grudgingly sat down and took a swig of the warm cup of tea sitting on the desk. It was the perfect temperature, and the second it touched her tongue, she instantly felt more relaxed. It had a slightly minty taste to it and felt as though it warmed every nerve and muscle in her body.

"What did you put in this?" she asked curiously, eyeing the teacup slightly warily.

"Just a Calming Draught," he said candidly. "Nothing else. I decided that it might be a good idea for you to have some, just in case you were still slightly hysterical."

Normally Lily would be outraged by the fact that she had been practically drugged by her Headmaster without her knowing, but the Calming Draught in the tea prevented her from being angry, and she was, inside, appreciative of it. She had cried half the night and slept very little.

"Thank you," she said emotionlessly. She said nothing after this, staring at Dumbledore. He did not respond and instead watched her with a look in his eyes that she could not explain. Last night, when she had flown into his office like an avenging angel, he had made her recount her entire story. The Death Eaters, her parents' slaughter, the events leading up to it, how she had escaped. It was nothing she had wanted to remember and did not wish to have to repeat her tale again. He refused to give her a definitive answer on her possible membership in the Order of the Phoenix, and instead had sent her, accompanied by several house elves, to Gryffindor Tower to go to sleep.

Seeing that Dumbledore was not going to speak first, Lily asked, looking down at the table, "What am I going to do now?"

Dumbledore sighed. "You expressed a desire to join the Order of the Phoenix last night, did you not?"

Lily looked up. In her eyes burned the fire of her spirit that all morning had been quelled. "Yes, Professor. I want to join the Order."

He raised an eyebrow. "And why is that? A little more than a week ago, I had asked if you wanted to join, and you refused. All of a sudden, you have changed your mind."

"If I joined, maybe this wouldn't have happened to my parents. Maybe they wouldn't have died. They might have been protected. They were _innocent_. _They didn't deserve for this to happen to them." _Lily almost hissed the last two words. Her powerful emotions somehow managed to fight through part of the Calming Draught.

Dumbledore's eyes seemed to stare through her, and it made her incredibly uneasy, but she met his gaze.

"Miss Evans," he said at last. "This is a big decision for you, and it is one that I do not wish for you to make while caught up in the heat of your anger and very understandable sadness, but—"

Lily, without breaking her gaze, picked up her teacup and threw back the last of her now-cold tea laced with Calming Draught. Swallowing it pointedly, she said, somewhat coldly, "I just drank all of your Calming Draught, Professor. Now that I'm in a clear head and without my _passion _to break through my thoughts, I'm telling you right now, I'm joining the Order of the Phoenix."

The greying wizard was, inside, taken aback by her frankness. "You certainly are a young woman that knows her own mind, Miss Evans."

"Yes. I am. And my mother never liked it, but now I'm speaking my mind for both her and my father, because they aren't here anymore to speak theirs." The green of her eyes seemed to glow as she leaned across the ornate mahogany desk. "Let me, Professor. I was too scared to join only days ago, but now I'm not afraid. I made a mistake, and I'm here to fix it."

Green fire bored into azure waters as she leveled his stare. After a moment, Dumbledore closed his eyes and sighed inwardly.

"Then I must grant your wish, Miss Evans, if that is what you truly want," he spoke almost gently. "I can see that you're determined, and it is a most admirable trait." He stood up suddenly, and said briskly, "Very well. We must make arrangements." He paced about his office, and his rapid change in manner almost shocked Lily. "You could stay here for the summer, but I'm afraid you would grow rather lonely, locked in the castle for two months. Are there any friends you could stay with? Family?"

Lily paused. Petunia most definitely wouldn't want to be around her. Not after this. She knew in her heart that Petunia was going to blame her for everything, and damn right that she should, but she didn't want to have to put herself through _that _misery too. There was always Alice, but she had never mentioned the Order of the Phoenix to her. She couldn't drag Alice into this matter. She couldn't put her best friend into the danger she had so stupidly thrown her parents into. She had let her parents die; she would not make the same mistake twice. She had other friends, but she was not close enough with any of them that she could stay with them for an entire summer, or put them at risk with her involvement in the Order of the Phoenix.

She finally spoke. "No, Professor. There's nowhere I can go." Her voice was dangerously close to shaking, but she kept it as steady as she could, keeping her eyes fixed on the mahogany desk. She looked at the carvings, trying not to think about her situation. Were those _faeries _carved into the desk?

As she thought this, one almost seemed to move, and she stepped back with a gasp.

"Miss Evans, are you all right?" Dumbledore looked at her concernedly and took half a step towards her.

Lily looked again at the desk. Nothing moved. She must have been hallucinating. _I must be going crazy, _Lily thought ruefully. _I guess I really didn't get enough sleep._

"I'm fine, Professor. Just…uh…stubbed my toe," she said sweetly.

He cocked an eyebrow. "Well, as long as you are okay, Miss Evans. Since you have no place to go, we can set up residence for you at the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. It is in the house of the Prewett family, and I trust that you will keep that secret safe, as a new member of the Order."

_The _Prewett _family? _Lily thought incredulously. _Wait… Alice…?_

A look of shock must have spread across Lily's face, as Dumbledore peered at her inquisitively. "Is there something wrong?"

"Oh, uh," Lily stumbled. "The Prewett family?" She coughed. "Do you mean to say that…Alice is a member?"

Dumbledore smiled and shook his head. "She is not, incidentally. The headquarters are at Gideon and Fabian's home, her twin cousins, in London. Actually, I invited Miss Prewett the same day that I invited you, perhaps an hour after you rejected my offer. She begged me to tell her if you were going to join, and I would not tell her. She insisted that she must know, since she did not wish to put you in danger by having you associate with her, if she was to join and you did not. She's fiercely loyal to you, you know. I had to tell her in the end. She really wanted to join, I could tell, but she didn't want to risk your life. I was impressed."

Lily smiled wanly. "Can I tell her I joined now?"

"No. You mustn't." he answered shortly. "I'm sure she will realize soon enough, but either way, she should come to this decision on her own."

Lily's heart twisted at the thought of having to keep a secret from her best friend, but if Dumbledore told her not to, she couldn't. He was much wiser than she, and she knew that he must have his reasons for asking her not to tell her, and she must abide by it. She changed the subject. "So when will I be moving in at the headquarters, Professor?"

He did not answer her immediately, instead walking around his desk to a scarlet-plumed phoenix perched in a gilded cage in the corner of the office. "_Fawkes,_" he whispered gently. "Fawkes."

The beautiful bird lifted its elegant head and peered at the old man standing before him as he unlatched the cage door. "Go to the Prewett house. Let them know we are coming." The phoenix looked at him with its beady black eyes. "Go." Dumbledore repeated.

Fawkes spread his wide, crimson wings and soared out of his cage and through the nearby casement window that was left ajar.

Lily looked out the window at the bird, soaring off into the sky in the early morning. "Professor," she asked suddenly. "May I go back to my house?"

"May I ask why?" Dumbledore queried pleasantly, closing the door to Fawkes's cage.

"Well, I just want to go to get my things, if they're still there, and I…I…I want to see…what's left." Her voice broke as she finished. _Damn, _she thought. _I just can't hold it together. I think the Draught is wearing off…_

He looked at her gently. "You have to understand, my dear, it is simply too soon to go back. I promise you, we will let you go within the week, but we must look further into this first. We cannot allow you to go on your own. I will send some members of the Order to look at it first, but we must not let you go. For all we know, they are staking out your home, waiting for you to go back."

Lily, who had been standing for the past ten minutes or so, collapsed back down onto the chair behind her and rested her head on top of Dumbledore's desk.

He patted her hand in a grandfatherly way. "I understand your sadness and your distress, my dear, but you have my word that we will let you visit there soon."

"I know, I know," she whispered, muffled by the mahogany. "I just wish…yeah."

She stayed in that position for a few moments with Dumbledore's hand resting on hers comfortingly until Fawkes swooped back through the window with a burst of fire and wind. Her head shot up from the desk.

"Fawkes delivered the message," Dumbledore said pleasantly, stating the semi-obvious. Lily nodded and he continued. "If you'd like, we could leave immediately. Is there anything you need to collect from your dormitory? Clothes, anything?"

"No, Professor. I have with me everything I came with. My wand and the clothes I've got right now," she said rather wryly.

"Right then," he said in a business-like tone, clasping his hands together. "Then we may leave right now. As a matter of fact, I've already had a Portkey arranged." His eyes twinkled laughingly and Lily couldn't help but smile despite her sadness.

Dumbledore opened a drawer on his side of the very curious desk and pulled out an old quill. "It certainly isn't much in way of size, but it shall have to do, as I couldn't find much else lying around," he declared. "It is scheduled to leave in about two minutes, give or take, so it will do you good to place your hand on it, to prepare."

Lily did as he said and within moments she felt the rather unpleasant yet familiar feeling of a Portkey lifting off and transporting her through space as she flew through a sudden darkness and spun wildly out of control into the abyss.

* * *

><p>They landed suddenly on the floor of Gideon and Fabian Prewett's living room. The two fair, blond men were already standing in the room, smiling at Dumbledore and Lily. Dumbledore had landed in a standing position, but Lily had ended up falling onto her back, and embarrassedly picked herself up, dusting herself off awkwardly.<p>

"Lovely to see you Gideon, Fabian," Dumbledore shook their hands pleasantly. "I'm sorry this was so sudden for you both. Surely you understand…"

The twin pair nodded solemnly, and Fabian looked at Lily. "I'm sorry to hear about what happened to your parents, Evans," he spoke softly. "I understand what you're going through."

Gideon shot him a sidelong glance, but Fabian paid him no attention. "My brother and I have been in…a similar situation recently." Fabian looked at the floor and said no more.

His brother interjected harshly, "He means to say our parents died two months ago." Gideon did not appear to be upset. Instead he seemed almost…angry? Lily was slightly confused, but she did not dwell on it. She had not known that the Prewett brothers' parents had died recently. Alice had not said a word about it and Lily hadn't heard a thing.

"I…I'm sorry," she almost stuttered, seeing what looked to be the slightest hint of a tear in Fabian's eyes. "I guess we're all in the same…boat, I suppose."

"The _Daily Prophet_ covered it up," Gideon said bitterly. "Dumbledore _insisted _that it be done, so as not to _frighten _the populace."

"And it is for the best—" Dumbledore began soothingly, but Gideon interrupted him.

"It is most certainly _not _for the best!" Gideon shouted. "The public _should _be frightened! There's a lunatic out there killing almost _everyone _he encounters! They ought to be terrified out of their wits!"

"Gideon—" Fabian began, but his twin was already storming out of the room. He sighed loudly. "I'm sorry," he said to Dumbledore and Lily. "He's been in a foul mood all week and I guess he's just reached an exploding point."

"It's quite all right," Lily said. Fabian looked at her dubiously. "No really, it is," she continued earnestly. "It's understandable. It's a horrible experience and sometimes keeping it inside just makes it hurt even more."

Fabian looked impressed. "You're quite the levelheaded young lady," he said with a slightly teasing tone. "I should like to hear some more of these thoughts of yours some time."

Lily blushed ever so slightly. _What a flirt…_

Dumbledore broke in before either could say another word. "Fabian, this young lady needs some new clothes. Could you arrange for her to go shopping with Molly sometime soon?"

Fabian nodded somberly, much different from his attitude seconds before. "Of course, Professor Dumbledore. For now, she can have some of Molly's clothes. I'm sure they will fit her. They're about the same height and rail-thin." He tilted his head in Lily's direction and added jokingly, "Although I have to say that _this _one has some more curves."

Lily was flat-out red by this point, and Fabian was grinning.

"That's no way to talk to a lady, Fabian," Dumbledore said reprovingly. "And I know that you graduated but two days ago, but you must call me Albus. I no longer am your professor." He pulled an ornate, gaudy pocket watch out of an unseen compartment of his midnight blue robes. "I really must be going in a moment or two. I have been gone from Hogwarts for a bit of a time now, and I must tend to some…things. I trust you will take care of her?"

"Of course, Albus." He nodded and turned to Lily. "You look exhausted. We have several spare rooms here and Molly's got heaps of extra clothes lying around that I'm sure she'd let you wear. Shall we?" Fabian offered her his arm in a most debonair way as Dumbledore waved at the pair, picking up the Portkey-Quill again and tapped it with his wand.

Fabian led her out of the living room and into the hallway. It was absolutely stunning. They were in the main hallway of the Prewett house, and Lily had not realized before how beautiful and gigantic their home was. It was a _mansion. _There was gigantic staircase in the center of the hall that looked to be made of pure rosewood. It spiraled upwards through several floors of the huge house, and there were portraits lining the halls of stately-looking Prewett ancestors and past renowned family members. The chandelier glimmered in the noontime sunlight, and Lily was entranced by it.

"Like it?" Fabian noticed her staring at it. When she nodded, in awe, he said, "It's pure diamond, you know."

"Wow." She kept staring, mouth slightly open. "It's so beautiful, especially with the sun. It's like a prism."

"Would you like one?" He turned to her, his beautiful golden eyes staring into her like a lion's.

"One what?" she asked, slightly confused.

"A diamond from the chandelier." he responded simply.

Her jaw really did drop this time. "But how…?"

"Like this, my dear."

He ran up the several flights of winding stairs to the very top, with Lily sprinting upwards behind him, hot on his heels. At the very top, he put his foot on the railing and balanced. He lifted his other foot and stood up there, like a man standing at the edge of a cliff. Lily peered over the railing, downwards. They were at least one hundred feet above the ground.

"Be careful, Prewett!" she called to him, stepping up the last few stairs to the top floor. He was leaning forward slightly, perched on the top of the railing. If he leaned too far forward or were to slip off the banister, he would fall to his almost certain death.

Fabian stretched out his arm and effortlessly plucked a scintillating diamond from a miniscule, gold hook on the chandelier. He hopped off of the banister like an angel and handed the diamond to Lily. "For you, my dear," he said with a silly grin. "A diamond for a girl just as beautiful, or, dare I say, even more so."

"Thank you," she whispered, smiling. "Are you this sweet to all the girls you meet?"

"Only the perfect ones," he responded. There was a heavy, brooding, yet—was it romantic? It couldn't be—look in his eyes. Before Lily could look any closer, the expression was gone.

"This will be your room for the summer, Evans," he gestured to a closed door, made of rosewood like the stairs they had come up. "I hope you'll like it. You can go on in, I'll get a bunch of Molly's clothes for you."

"You sure she won't mind you going through her room?" Lily teased. "Most girls would be just a _tad _upset."

"She'll cope," he laughed. "This wouldn't be the first time I've gone through her things. Like the time I was twelve and snuck in to read her diary. She hexed me silly every day for a week!"

"You deserved it, you demon child!" she called after him as he walked down the hallway on the top, fifth floor. He laughed with her, their voices tinkling down the stairs and emanating through the halls of the mansion. When Fabian was out of sight, she opened the door and gasped.

The beauty of the hallway paled in comparison to the room Fabian had given her. This was immaculate. In the middle of the room was a four-poster bed with snow white, linen sheets and down pillows. The casement windows were open and the silk curtains were blowing in the gentle breeze as she stared in awe. The walls were painted a deep red and on the dresser were several bottles of what looked to be expensive French perfume. The immense walk-in closet was slightly ajar and from Lily's angle, she could already see that it was filled with clothes. _And Fabian went to go get me _more_ than this?_

She walked over to the bed and laid down on it, kicking off her shoes. The second her porcelain-skinned face hit the pillow, she was asleep, without even shutting the room door.

Moments later, Fabian strode into the room, piles of clothes in his arms. He saw the redhead lying asleep on the bed and stared for a second. He walked to the closet and put the clothes in, hanging them up neatly on the wooden hangers. He closed the closet quietly and tiptoed across the room, peering at the fire-haired girl lying on the bed, unmoving. She was sound asleep, most definitely. He sighed, walked to the door, and exited, closing it softly behind him. He knew that this was going to be one interesting summer with a certain beautiful young lady joining the Order of the Phoenix...

* * *

><p><em>Authors Note:<em>

_Sorry it took me so long to get something up! I've been absolutely SWAMPED with homework, tests, and all that jazz. No good. I got a 75 on a test in calculus earlier this week, and I had thought it was easy, too. Ouch. That's _slightly _disappointing, isn't it? I still have an A+ average in that class because I got 100s on all the other tests and my teacher curves all the tests A LOT, but it was still pretty sad. On top of that, I had auditions for a piano competition today and completely bombed it. No, I'm serious, it was terrible. Ah, enough about my little trials. _

_So how'd you like the chapter? Do you like Fabian? What do you think is going to happen with him and Lily, hmmm? Tell me in a review! I'd reaaaaally like some more for this chapter. Pretty please? Even if all you have to say is, "I like it" or "Update soon!", I'm happy. Seriously, I am. So please, drop a review! Positive, negative, anything! I'd love to hear from you. Plus, I just blew off about three hours of homework to write this, so I'd love to hear some comments of the fruits of my labor, darlings._

_Much love, _

_The Silent Rain._


	4. Wake Up

Chapter Four: Wake Up

_When they say you're not that strong,  
>You're not that weak.<br>It's not your fault.  
>When you climb up to your hill,<br>Up to your place,  
>I hope you're well.<em>

_-Our Lady Peace_

* * *

><p>Lily was falling. All was dark around her, and she was falling. The wind was whistling in her ears and she heard distant screaming. Her parents. A thousand images were flashing before her eyes. The mahogany desk…faeries and pixies rising out of the woodwork and into her mind. The colorfully-dressed beggar from the street that had grasped her arm and called her name was standing above her, staring at her with a vacant expression.<p>

"HELP ME!" she screamed to the beggar. "HELP!"

The beggar laughed and disappeared, and in her place appeared Fabian, reddish-gold hair whipping about him in the wind as he floated. He stared in horror as he watched Lily fall and reached out a hand to her as she screamed. She outstretched her arm to try to reach him, but could not, as James Potter materialized next to him. James and Fabian looked at one another for a split second, and suddenly each was on either side of her, and all three hurled toward the ground. Fabian was staring at her, his intense eyes burning through her as he held out to her the diamond he had plucked from the chandelier. He blinked once, and hurled it downwards, into the abyss below them. There was an explosion of gold and green sparks and white light flooded the darkness. All of a sudden, James and Fabian were gone, and Lily stopped falling, floating in the light.

A moment later, the light was gone. Darkness returned. She hurtled toward the ground and saw the Thames River rushing up to meet her, its polluted water turbulent and wild in the wind, illuminated by the dirty, musty streetlamps on the roads next to it. The water was running a crimson red, the exact hue of blood. In the river lay the corpses of her mother and her father, their eyes glassy and wide, their bodies grey and withering. She shrieked and closed her eyes as tightly as she could, bracing herself for the impact and near-certain death…

And then she woke up, barely conscious, still screaming, with the diamond from the chandelier that Fabian had given to her clutched in her fist.

A gentle-faced woman with carrot-red hair was standing over her, wide-eyed and terrified. "Fabian! Gideon! Come quickly!" she shouted as the porcelain-skinned girl thrashed around on the four-poster bed, crying out as though she were being stabbed by a thousand knives.

She glanced about, frightened. She found a pitcher of water that one of the house elves must have left for the girl, and poured some on the girl's forehead as twin brothers burst into the room.

"What's wrong with her?" Gideon barked over Lily's screams. "What happened?"

Fabian ran forward, standing next to Molly, and shook Lily. "Wake up!"

Her emerald eyes flew open as she gasped for breath. She stared at the three siblings standing over her, nearly hyperventilating as she finally stopped screaming.

"Are you okay?" Fabian asked, his eyes piercing her searchingly. "What was it?"

Gideon had retreated to the farthest corner of the room while Molly and Fabian stood next to the bed, gazing at her with concern in their eyes. Lily looked back and forth between the two of them, occasionally flitting to Gideon who stood in the corner, eyes fixed on the floor.

"Just, just a bad dream…" Lily muttered hoarsely, realizing that her entire body was covered with freezing cold sweat, mingling with the cool water that Molly had poured on her. The sheets were drenched. She was terrified, even in the light of the morning, with the Prewett clan surrounding her. "I'm sorry you had to find me like this."

"It's all right, dear," spoke Molly consolingly, stroking Lily's arm calmly. She seemed rather motherly and matronly, despite looking to be in her mid-twenties. "You're safe." Kneeling next to the bed, she saw tears in the teenager's eyes. Quickly, she turned to Gideon and Fabian before they could notice. "Boys, out. Now."

"But you just called us in here!" Fabian whined. "Why're you kicking us out _already?_"

"It's girl time, you brat," Molly said crossly. "And if you don't get out, I _will_ use force."

"Oh, you will, will you, Mollywobbles?" her brother smirked. "Isn't that what your darling _Arthur _calls you?"

Molly whipped a wand out of a pocket of her robes as Fabian laughed. "You can't even take this situation seriously, can you, Fabian?" Her eyes burned with anger. "Leave or I'll jinx the hell out of you," she threatened.

He raised his hands sarcastically. "Oh, because I couldn't fight you off in a single hex, Molls." He snorted and walked out of the room.

Molly groaned and looked to Gideon, who was still standing by himself in the corner of the room. "Is there _nothing _we can do about him?"

All Gideon did was shrug emotionlessly, following his twin out the door and shutting it almost silently.

Sighing quietly, Molly looked at Lily, who was now sitting up in bed, still looking a little pale and nervous. "Now that those ridiculous boys are out of here, we can talk. Are you all right, really?"

"I…I think so," Lily answered shakily, brushing damp red hair out of her tear-filled eyes. "It's just…I don't know. It was one of those nightmares where you're falling and falling. And you're about to die and before you hit the ground, you wake up, but you still feel like you're just hurtling towards the ground even though you're lying in bed and you feel like you're going to be sick…" she trailed off, her voice breaking slightly from her unshed tears as Molly nodded sympathetically.

"I understand, love," Molly said, gently brushing back Lily's hair in a motherly way, despite the fact that she was still fairly young. "It's no surprise you're having nightmares, especially because of…what happened." She looked mildly uncomfortable around the subject of Lily's parents' murder, not wanting to make her more upset than she had to be. "We can get you a Calming Draught so you can sleep better, if you need."

"No," Lily answered quickly and almost harshly, the tears suddenly gone. Molly raised an eyebrow. "It's just…I need to learn how to cope with this…sort of thing…soon, if I'm going to be in the Order, and drugging it out of my mind every night isn't going to make anything better."

Molly was impressed. For a girl who had just watched her parents die before her own eyes, who had just escaped from near certain death, who had just woken up in a cold sweat from horrific nightmares, she was incredibly strong and well-spoken.

"Well, if you ever need anything at all, someone to talk to, someone to listen, you have me, especially since we'll be in this house all summer," Molly said with a smile. Lily was looking healthier and healthier with each passing moment and the color was finally returning to her face, but when she tried to get up out of bed, Molly immediately pushed her back down.

"Nope. You're resting for now," Molly stated firmly. "Bedrest will do you good."

"But—"

"Stay!" Molly commanded. "I'm going to go get you a cup of tea and some toast, and if I have any sign that you moved from this spot, I will _watch you _stay in bed for the rest of the day." She left the room briskly and Lily heard her walking down the stairs, away from her.

_What am I, a puppy? _Lily thought, annoyed. _Well, I'd like to see her stop me…_

She swung her slim legs out of bed and stood up, and immediately got a head rush, her vision clouding over in a dark fog as she was overcome with dizziness. She grabbed one of the bed posts and hung on to it as she swayed back and forth for a few moments. Once she steadied herself and her vision returned to normal, she looked around the room and fully took in her surroundings again. It was evening now, and the magical clock on the nightstand read 7:45 PM. She had slept the entire day since she had arrived, and woke up as night began to rise. The sun always set late and rose early in the summertime in England, and tonight was no exception. It was the time in between full light and sunset, where the sun is halfway down the sky but not yet beginning to disappear behind the glowing horizon. The heavens were beginning to shine with the slightest hints of red streaks in between the few wispy clouds hovering in the atmosphere.

Lily was still wearing the clothes from when her parents had died. From when she had gone out with Frank, Alice, and James.

James. That had only been yesterday. Twenty four hours ago, she had been sitting outside of Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor, laughing, with her best friend, her boyfriend, and James Potter. Strange how fleeting time could be. James had been so nice to her, and she couldn't tell if he really changed or if he was just pretending. They had fought last night, she remembered. It was such a distant memory now. What had they fought about again?

Suddenly she remembered. That peculiar woman, that beggar, in the colorful shawls. Lily had given her magical money by accident. The beggar had yelled at her that she was not safe, and her parents had been murdered mere minutes later. She had grabbed her arm and hung on so tightly that Lily had felt the circulation to her arm being cut off. James had slapped the beggar and grabbed Lily's arm and pulled her away down the empty London street.

And the beggar had known her name.

_Damn right, I'm not safe…_

Tears came to her eyes. Though she had cried all last night, she still felt lost. She had put on a good, strong face in front of Dumbledore and the Prewetts…and Fabian. What _was _it about that boy?

But her parents. They were _dead,_ and while the people who had raised her were murdered, she was standing in a mansion wondering about a pair of boys, one dark-haired and one fair, that confused her beyond belief.

_Don't cry now, darling, _she thought to herself. _Not now. Molly will be back any minute…crap. Molly. I have to get out of here before she comes back and ties me to the bed…_

Lily grabbed a random set of robes that Fabian had hung in the closet that afternoon while she fell asleep and got changed in ten seconds flat, placing Fabian's diamond in her pocket, not daring to leave it in the room lest Molly find it. She ran to the door as quietly as she could and peeked out around it in time to see Molly rounding her way up the staircase, fortunately still near the bottom, and singing.

"_I'll be the spice in your cauldron potion, baby,"_ warbled Molly, weaving back and forth up the stairs, bearing a silver tray with toast, jam, and tea.

_Merlin, how am I supposed to get out now? _Lily wondered, staring, slightly stunned, at the questionably sane woman with horrible singing skills who was dancing her way up the stairs.

Lily flew across the room, grabbed her wand off the nightstand where she had left it that afternoon, and saw Molly still coming up the stairs, but much closer now. Praying Molly wouldn't see her, Lily pointed her wand at the older woman, who was still lost in her ridiculous tune.

"_Impedimenta!"_ she whispered.

A jet of red light shot out from her wandtip and hit Molly squarely in the chest. She stopped her wretched singing, stumbled backwards onto the landing of the stairs, and backed into the wall.

Lily slipped from her bedroom and into the hallway, darting away from her room and the stairs as she heard Molly shriek rather weakly, "Fabian, you little piece of slime, I'm going to get you for this!"

_Well, at least she doesn't think it's me…_

Lily knew that the jinx wouldn't hold Molly back for very long. She flew out of her room and turned right down the hallway, running as quickly and as silently as she could across the fifth floor. She had realized earlier that day that the Prewett house was big, but she hadn't thought it was _this _big. The hallway seemed to stretch on forever, lit by what looked to be gas lamps, except for the fact that they were in a magical household, so it couldn't possibly be gas. She had strayed away from the main hall and was instead sprinting down a narrow, side hallway that was devoid of decoration beyond the lamps hanging from the walls. She hadn't the slightest idea where she was going, but she knew that she was only briefly ahead of Molly, who surely would have overcome the jinx she put on her by now. In a few more seconds, she would notice that Lily wasn't in her bed and she would start looking for her, and that was the last thing she wanted.

_Crap crap CRAP, where can I hide? _Lily thought frantically, still running. The windowless hall was beginning to slope upwards, strangely, and she had no idea where it was leading to. She couldn't turn back, and there was only one way left to go but forward. The lamps seemed to be getting a little brighter, and she sped up her pace.

Suddenly, the hallway opened up into a round, open room. Whereas the rest of the mansion was laden with the ubiquitous rosewood furnishings, this room was almost entirely filled with marble. The center of the circular room was open, with a marble, spiral staircase winding its way downward. The room was incredibly bright, lined with bay windows hung with extraordinarily crimson drapes. It was immaculately clean. Wherever there were no windows, there were bookshelves and bookshelves and bookshelves, made of the rosewood characteristic of the rest of the mansion.

Lily stopped running. The room was so perfect that she couldn't help but admire its beauty. The reddish light of near-sunset was streaming in through the windows and the tiny particles of dust floating in the air were lit up by the rich, warm light, and the books on the shelves with their cracked-leather binding and gold-printed titles and yellowed pages were practically shining.

She stood there, almost stunned for a moment. She stared around her, taken by the books. She was an avid reader, and this room, which appeared to be a library of sorts, pleased her very deeply. Forgetting her haste in fleeing from Molly, she walked over to the nearest bookshelf and picked up a book. It was entitled _Muggles and Thy Fearfull Follys. _Intrigued by the Old English name, she flipped open the cover and saw that it was published in 1249, and was written by a man named Amsden Prewett. Surely he was an ancestor of the twins and Molly.

_I bet this book has been in the Prewett family for all those years too, since it was written over 700 years ago. It looks like the first publication…_ Lily was awed by this. It was incredible how magic preserved books so well. She had never paid much attention to Pureblood Wizarding bloodlines, nor had she ever really cared, since she was a Muggleborn herself and she felt that caring about family heritage was shallow, but she was still very impressed by the history the Prewett family seemed to have.

She could have stared at this forever if she didn't hear the indistinct cries of an apparently angry Molly echoing down the hallway. They still sounded distant, but they were close enough that Lily got nervous.

She picked up her running, and her footfalls resounded loudly in the huge room, bouncing off the round walls. There was a door on the opposite end of the room, and she flew towards it as fast as she could. When she reached it, she threw it open and ran through it, quickly closing it behind her soundlessly. Unlike the other hallway from before, this one was high-ceilinged and filled with huge double-doors on each side that must have been fifteen feet high.

_How am I ever going to find my way around here? _She wondered nervously.

Lily tried several doors on every side of her, but none of them were opening. Several minutes had passed since she had first jinxed Molly and fled her room, and she had absolutely no idea where she was. The hallway turned sharply to the left and she was faced with one single door. She couldn't turn back. She had attempted to open all of the other doors and none of them would budge an inch. Either this one would have to open or she would be stuck getting yelled at by Molly for the rest of the night. She especially didn't want to face her since she had just _jinxed _her. Most people would be at least a _bit _unhappy about that sort of thing.

She turned the knob and, like the rest of the doors, it would not open.

"Fabian!" she heard Molly calling down the hallway. She couldn't be very far away now, but Lily couldn't tell accurately because of how voices seem to echo in the halls.

"_Shit, _Merlin, _open!_" Lily muttered, wrenching at the doorknob. She could hear an indistinct conversation on the other side of the door, but she didn't care who was inside. She was coming in whether they liked it or not.

_Wait, what the hell is wrong with me? I'm a witch! I have a wand!_

Praying to every higher power that could possibly exist that the Prewetts didn't put a spell on their doors so that _Alohomora _wouldn't work, Lily pulled her wand out and tapped the knob, hissing the incantation.

The door swung open, and inside were Gideon and Fabian, staring at her incredulously.

Lily stumbled inside and slammed the door behind her, turning the lock as she did so. "Hi guys."

She quickly took in the room. It was laid out in almost the exact same way that hers was, with a four-poster bed and casement windows, but the room was painted a brilliant shade of royal blue instead of red. It was slightly messy, as usual for a boy's room, with some clothes tossed in a pile in one corner.

The twins seemed to be slightly at a loss for words, until Fabian finally spoke. "Uh, are you okay?"

"I'm great, thanks for asking," Lily answered rather sarcastically and breathlessly as a very loud knock came at the door. Molly.

Her eyes went wide and she scampered across the room towards the twins. _"Hide me," _she mouthed.

The twin pair seemed to realize what was going on and immediately Fabian stepped forward, grabbed Lily, and pulled her towards the closet of the room as a stony-faced Gideon strode towards the door.

"Open the _damn_ door, Fabian!" Molly shouted on the other side of the door, pounding it angrily. "I know you're in there!"

Gideon whipped the door open and faced Molly, expressionless, as Fabian and Lily disappeared into the closet. Lily assumed it was Fabian's bedroom that they were in, or at least, Fabian's closet. A small lamp was lit in the gigantic, walk-in closet, and it cast a golden ray of light on the pair standing there.

They heard Gideon say, "What do you _want, _Molly?"

"I need to see Fabian!"

"May I ask why?" Gideon asked drily.

"Because she hates me," Fabian muttered to Lily rather cynically, rolling his eyes.

"Because he JINXED ME, THE WANKER!" Molly yelled furiously.

Fabian looked at Lily with raised eyebrows. She winced in embarrassment.

"Did he?" Gideon replied. "Well, maybe you deserved it."

"Oh, shut up," said Molly irritably. "Where the hell is he, and why are you in his room?"

"I'm here because he told me to go get a spellbook of his from his drawer, and I haven't got the slightest idea where he is, Molly." Gideon sounded weary.

"Well, Lily isn't in her bed, and I don't think she would just run off for the fun of it!" Molly snarled. "Fabian probably _kidnapped _her or something awful—"

"Maybe she was trying to escape _you,_ has that ever crossed your mind?" Annoyance was growing in Gideon's tone. "You're being _incredibly _annoying as of late, and if I were her, I'd probably run pretty damn far, too."

Lily snickered quietly inside the closet and Fabian chuckled. "He's right," Lily whispered to Fabian. "She was threatening to watch me for the rest of the night if I so much as moved from the bed."

"Very characteristic of her," Fabian whispered back. "She can be a little obsessive sometimes."

"SHE COULD HAVE JUMPED OUT THE WINDOW AND DIED OR SOMETHING, GIDEON!" Molly was screaming now. "CAN'T YOU ACT LIKE YOU CARE?"

"Do you _honestly_ think she jumped out the window?" Gideon sounded like was going to smack his sister. "If she did, maybe you should go jump after her and test whether or not it's a deadly fall, just for kicks."

"WHATEVER!" Molly yelled. "WHATEVER. IF YOU REALLY WANT TO TAKE THIS LIGHTLY, GO AHEAD AND _SHIRK _YOUR DUTIES AND IGNORE EVERY ORDER DUMBLEDORE'S GIVEN YOU ABOUT THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX! IF YOUR MANWHORE OF A TWIN _MOLESTS _HER, I WILL HOLD BOTH OF YOU ACCOUNTABLE AND WILL SEE TO IT THAT ALASTOR MOODY STRINGS BOTH OF YOU UP IN THE CELLAR!"

_Manwhore? _

Fabian and Lily could hear her stomping away as Gideon shut the door sharply, and they emerged from their hiding place in the closet.

"Well, she's feeling a tad dramatic tonight," Gideon deadpanned, sliding down to sit on the floor, his back against the wall. This was the most Lily had ever heard Gideon speak.

Fabian chortled. "When _isn't _she?" He crossed the room and flopped on his bed. He turned his head to face Lily. "So what the hell happened?" His eyes shone with amusement. "It sounded like one interesting little ordeal to have worked her up like _that._"

Lily cringed, sitting down in an armchair next to the bed. "Well, she's a wonderful woman, but she's really, really protective."

"Oh, do tell us more," Gideon snorted sarcastically. "We've been living with her all our lives. Trust us, we _know._"

Fabian shot his brother a deprecating look. "Shut it, Gideon." He turned back to Lily. "So really, what was that about?"

Lily sighed. "After she kicked you two out, she said she'd bring me some tea and toast, and that if I so much as moved, she would supervise me sitting in bed for the rest of the night."

"Typical Molly," Gideon said, rolling his eyes. "Continue. I want to hear about this _jinxing _part."

Lily turned red. "Uh…I didn't really want to deal with her because I…sort of wanted to be alone because I was in a bad mood, and she's nice and all but…I didn't really want company. So I went to sneak out of the room before she could come back, but she was already halfway up the stairs, so I did an Impedimenta Jinx on her so I could get away."

"You _cursed_ my _sister_?" Fabian looked a mixture of impressed, nonplussed, and amused.

"Well…yeah. And now she thinks it was you." Lily was embarrassed. So maybe jinxing a woman that was trying to help her was a tiny bit extreme, but it seemed rational at the time.

Gideon was holding back a smirk. "You must have been pretty desperate to get away from her."

"Yes, I was." Lily was sinking into the armchair, slightly wishing she could disappear. She had jinxed these boys' sister for basically no reason. At least they didn't seem overly upset...

Fabian let out a laugh. "Sounds exactly like something I'd do. I'm proud." He rolled over on the bed and hung off the side to high-five her. She reached out to do it, awkwardly.

"So after that I just ran down the hallway, and now I'm here. It's a bit of an anticlimactic story." She finished uncomfortably.

Fabian shook his head lightly and sighed. "You're one hell of a lady, Evans."

"Thanks, Prewett." She glared at him jokingly, finally overcoming her embarrassment. "So, you're a manwhore, eh?"

"She's exaggerating," Fabian groaned.

"No she isn't," Gideon interjected, a light glowing in his eyes as he got up and sat on the bed next to Fabian. "You _railed _every damn girl in our year!" This was a much different Gideon from the one Lily had seen earlier.

"_Lies. _I most definitely didn't hit Agnes Jugson and Marlene McKinnon. Jugson was a _Slytherin, _and come on, McKinnon's such a diehard _feminist _that if we banged, she'd probably give me hell every day for the rest of my _life._"

Lily raised her eyebrows. "You got around."

"He's a player," Gideon stated plainly.

"Oh you!" Fabian said in a falsetto, sitting up and girlishly smacking his twin on the arm.

Lily couldn't help but giggle a bit at the brothers sitting on the bed. She could see the bond between them. They were each the other's half. She was, however, slightly perturbed by this new discovery of Fabian's past. _So maybe he's just screwing with my mind…_

"My lady is amused!" Fabian sprung up off the bed and jumped towards Lily, who shrieked in surprise as he grabbed her hand dramatically. "My lady! My love!"

"Your player status is confirmed, Prewett," she said in between gasps of laughter.

Gideon sighed loudly. "Let go of her, Fab." He checked his watch. "We're going to be here for another half an hour."

Lily looked up. "What? Why?"

"There's an Order meeting tonight at nine. It's 8:30 now. We would have told you when you got here, but we wanted to let you rest first," Fabian supplied, returning to his spot on the bed. "You're coming, naturally, as the newest member of our _lovely _group of vigilante warriors against the forces of darkness."

"Vigilante warriors? We do more to stop those jackasses than the Ministry of Magic ever has or ever will," Gideon laughed bitterly. "They're a bunch of useless pigs that stuff their heads in the sand when the going gets hard."

Lily had never heard anyone speak of the Wizarding government in such a negative light in her life. Gideon seemed to hate almost all things that involved the establishment, especially the Daily Prophet and the Ministry. "Well, that's a bit extreme."

"So are the Death Eaters," he said simply.

Gideon seemed to slink back into one of his dark moods. It was the first time Lily had ever seen him _out _of them, and she preferred him that way. She would do anything to hear those laughs from him again, instead of that cynical silence that he always kept.

The room was quiet for a while, and Lily was lost in a reverie. It was James Potter who only last night had taught her not to fear the name "Voldemort." Last night, she had still been too terrified to even utter those syllables, but now, she did not feel scared anymore. He was merely a man. He was insane, certainly, but he was a man. And he was a man that needed to be brought down. He had arranged to have her parents killed, and then have her saved for last, after watching her father in his suffering. Would the Death Eaters come for her again? Most certainly. While she did not want to die, she was not afraid to. She would fight. Lily would be brave this time.

She broke the silence, after about a minute. "So, who's coming to the Order meeting tonight?"

"Oh, the usual," Fabian answered, reclining on top of the bed's down comforter and sparkling-white sheets. "Moody, Dumbledore, Dearborn, McGonagall, Hagrid, Longbottom—"

"Longbottom?" Lily asked, shocked. "_Longbottom?_"

"Frank Longbottom, yes," Gideon said, ending his silence. "Alice's boyfriend."

"And Alice doesn't…"

"Doesn't know? Of course she doesn't know," Gideon replied bitingly. "If she did, countless people would be at risk." There was no snapping him out of this darkness.

_His mood swings are absolutely awful…_

"Well, thank you for informing me," Lily said stiffly.

"You're welcome."

Fabian re-entered the discussion, acting as though nothing had happened. "I'm not really sure who else is coming, honestly, but those are the regulars at our meetings. There's a handful of other people in your year at Hogwarts that sometimes show up, but I don't know if they'll be here tonight."

Lily was about to ask who they were when a tawny owl tapped at the window. She looked up at the sound and almost screamed.

"PORTIA!" Lily ran to the window and fumbled with the latch, desperate to open it. After a few seconds, she managed to wrench it open and Portia flew inside, coming to rest on the windowsill. She had let Portia out yesterday afternoon before she left for the Leaky Cauldron to meet Alice, Frank, and James. She hadn't given much thought to what became of her poor owl, and now she was nearly overcome with guilt, but was deeply relieved to see Portia was safe.

"Your owl?" Fabian gazed at the interaction between animal and redhead curiously.

"Yes," Lily said breathlessly, stroking Portia's head gently. "I was out with friends yesterday afternoon and let her out before I left, and I had no idea what happened to her after…" Lily trailed off, not finishing her sentence.

"Nice name," Fabian nodded. "From Shakespeare's _Julius Caesar_?" He closed his eyes and recited. "Portia, what mean you? Wherefore rise you now? It is not for your health thus to commit your weak condition to the raw cold morning." He opened his eyes again and smirked. "You know, I was never much of a fan of her character. She sliced her leg open because she thought it was a sign of fidelity to her husband. If I were Brutus, I'd get the _hell _away from her because that's _insane._"

Lily was staring at Fabian in slight shock. Gideon groaned quietly, standing up.

"I think he just memorizes things like that for fun, Evans. You'll get used to it." He pointed to Portia. "Do you want me to go get a cage for her and put it in your room?" he asked. "I have to go, anyway. I promised Molly that I would help set up for the meeting later."

"What?" Lily snapped out of her thoughts and looked at Gideon, who was watching her expectantly. "Oh. Well, if you're offering…" she smiled gratefully, but his stoic expression did not change. Lily felt the smile leave her face as she held out the small owl to him. Portia perched on his long, slender index finger calmly, nibbling at her feathers placidly. "She seems to like you," she said. "Normally she would have clawed anyone else to death by now. She's a little anti-social."

"Animals like me," he said shortly. He turned to Fabian. "I'll be in the library if you need me, Fab." He got up and left the room, Portia still on his finger.

Lily stared out the door after Gideon. "Well, that was a bit abrupt."

"He's just being awful lately," Fabian sighed. "I'm honestly not really sure why. He's always been moody, but it's been getting worse."

"Have you tried asking why?" queried Lily curiously.

"Yes, but it never really gets very far," he groaned. "Normally he ends up shouting at me. '_Fabian, stop trying to act like you understand meeeee' _or '_Fabian, you don't understand what I truly feel like inside, you don't understand the torture in my soooooooul'_ or some nonsense like that."

Lily bit back a laugh. "I guess there's not much you can do, but I hope he's okay."

"So do I," he mumbled, burying his face in his pillow, red-gold hair sprawled around. He lifted his head ever-so-slightly so that one eye could see Lily. "So tell me about you, Evans, now that Gideon's gone."

Lily was slightly surprised at how suddenly Fabian changed the topic, but did her best not to let it play out on her face. If he didn't want to talk about Gideon, that was his decision, and she would not argue with him about it. "Well, what would you like to know? I'm really not that interesting."

"Anything you're fine with telling me," he said, rolling back over and sitting up, moving to sit on the edge of the bed, facing Lily.

She couldn't help but shrink a tiny bit under his intense gaze. It wasn't an intimidating stare, but his eyes had a sort of passion to them when he spoke.

"Uh…" Lily couldn't think of a single interesting thing to say. "I…I like cats?"

"Is that a question or a statement?" Fabian looked entertained. He must have noticed how Lily was uncomfortable, because he went on more gently. "So I heard you're best friends with my cousin."

"Alice!" Lily's face lit up, her features shining.

"Of course," Fabian said with a smile, his gold eyes glittering in the reddish sunset light filtering through the windows. "She's mentioned you several times before, and I've never gotten to meet you." He stretched, sitting up and leaning backwards, flexing like a tiger. "Funny, since we were in the same house in Hogwarts and all. I'd seen you around, but we never spoke."

"See, it was one of those situations where I knew who you _were, _but never actually talked to you," Lily said, overcoming her awkwardness and softening to the conversation. "You were in the year ahead of me, right? Dumbledore said earlier that you and Gideon just graduated."

"Indeed I was," he said, swinging his long legs back and forth on the edge of the bed. "Wizard Chess Club, Arithmancy Club, Chaser on the Quidditch Team, and most valued honorary member of those _not _in the Slug Club." He said the last one with a deep laugh.

_Chaser…just like James._

Lily giggled along with him. Professor Slughorn, the Potions professor at Hogwarts, had informally established a "club" of students that he thought were the brightest and smartest in the school. He picked who was allowed in, and it was really just favoritism. Lily had been picked, mainly because Slughorn adored her and doted on her like a daughter.

"The Slug Club really isn't all that," she said, still chuckling. "Actually, it's kind of disgusting. Slughorn throws these tacky Christmas parties and invites all these pretentious, rich, famous people from all over the place. They're really boring, to be honest. I only go because the food's fantastic and I don't want to fall out of Sluggie's good graces. I like him as a person and he's really nice, but those parties are just _awful._"

"See, I never qualified enough for that. I was smart enough, but I never tried in school to a point where Slug would be interested. He actually tapped Gideon for the club, but Gideon hates that type of thing so he rejected the offer with a few extra choice words."

"But you were in the ChessClub and the Arithmancy Club," Lily pointed out. "Arithmancy is basically the hardest subject Hogwarts even _offered._ You balanced geek and jock at the exact same time."

"Jock?" Fabian looked confused.

Lily winced. "Muggle term. Sorry. It's an athlete, basically."

"I'm a strange breed."

She rolled her eyes. "Clearly. So what's Alice said about me?"

"She absolutely loves you, for one thing. She told me about how you and her attempted to fly to the French Riviera last July but her father caught you two in the middle of the night, trying to strap your suitcases onto the back of your brooms." Fabian grinned. "You two could have been a little stealthier about it."

"It's not my fault she dropped her trunk down the stairs and woke everybody up! Her mum watched us from her window for a good ten minutes, laughing her arse off before her dad came down to stop us. Alice couldn't even get her broom off the ground, it was so heavy." Lily laughed at the memory. "I like to think we've mellowed out since then."

"Alice definitely hasn't. She's just as insane as she was when she was five years old." He shook his head with a snort. "She's also told me about how you're the smartest witch in your year."

Lily blushed. "I wouldn't say 'smartest.'"

"I would." Fabian leaned towards her, his golden eyes on fire. "As a matter of fact, I'd dare say the most intelligent and the most beautiful. I don't think the word 'pretty' does enough justice."

She couldn't break his fiery gaze. Gold met green, and she was being pulled into his eyes with a force stronger than gravity. Was he leaning closer? Was she? The distance between them was still great, but it seemed to be closing. _He may be a womanizer, _Lily thought dazedly. _But he's amazing._

_Snap out of it! He's a player. Either play right back or stop it right now. Don't be prey. Remember Davies. That arse cheated on you. Don't let the boys stomp all over you like they used to._

Lily called herself back to the present moment and found that she was in fact leaning forward. She kept her mortification inside and pulled herself back, refusing to let her emotions show on her face. "Well, Mister Prewett, you're quite the flirt," she said coquettishly, standing up from the armchair she had been sitting in. "But I'm afraid I'm not as easy as you think." She twirled across the room, waltzing towards the door.

_Finally I'm getting my old self back. Enough with this insecure nervousness I keep getting around this guy. I need to get back my actual personality._

"The Order meeting should be in a couple minutes, shouldn't it?" she asked, flashing him her most dazzling smile. "You're going to have to show me the way, Prewett, or I'll end up lost, and Molly might kill you if you let that happen."

If Fabian was confused at all by her rapid metamorphosis, he didn't show it. He stood up as well and returned her smile. "It's in ten minutes, but since you're in a _rush, _we can go now. It's in the library."

He opened the door and offered Lily his arm like a nineteenth century gentleman. She flicked her eyes down at the gesture and raised her eyebrows, looking back up at the tall young man standing next to her. She smirked and pointedly ignored it.

Fabian shrugged lightly to himself and lowered his arm. "Well, follow me, my lady," he said drily. "We're off to one of manymeetings where the brightest and most insane minds of England, Scotland, and Wales plot their own deaths in suicide missions to take out the forces of evil."

With a snicker, Lily followed him away down the hallway that she had sprinted down a little over an hour before.

* * *

><p>"Dammit, Padfoot," sighed a young man with black hair, lying face-down, sprawled on a loveseat in front of a window. "I don't know what the hell is going on."<p>

Sirius Black, shaggy dark hair messy as ever, was perched on a coffee table in front of the loveseat and peered with inquisitive grey eyes at his best friend with casual interest. "She's a girl," he said cynically. "Girls make everything a damn lot more confusing." With a theatrical wave of his hand, he proclaimed, "That's why my theory is, bang 'em once, and get the hell outta Dodge."

James Potter, head pressed against a pillow, made a face that his best friend could not see. "What in the name of Merlin is 'Dodge?'"

"Dodge City, Prongs. Think United States. Wild West, George Washington and all that," Sirius replied enthusiastically, watching James shove his face further into the cushions.

"George Washington was a long time before the Wild West, idiot."

"Oh, who gives a dragon's arse, I'm a wizard, not a bloody _historian_!" Sirius picked up a ceramic teacup that was sitting on the coffee table and threw it at James's head. With the reflexes born of years training on the Quidditch pitch, James rolled over and caught the teacup with ease, his gracefulness marred slightly by the fact that he almost fell off the loveseat.

"Do you _mind_?" James sounded irritable.

"Mind what?"

"Watching your language, you wanker!" he hissed. "My _mother _is in the other room! Just because you live here now doesn't mean you can talk like that!"

"Oh, she probably doesn't hear us," Sirius replied cheerfully. "And if she does, these aren't words that she hasn't heard before." Sirius had been disowned by his pureblood-supremacist family and left home without a backwards glance, moving in with his best friend at the age of sixteen. After an entire year of living there, he was happier than he had ever been at his childhood home in Grimmauld Place in London.

"It would also be _great _if you wouldn't throw _china _at my head," James continued, glaring at his now-laughing best friend.

"Oh, let it go, Prongs," Sirius rolled his eyes. "Either way, at least you didn't have such a bad time with Evans."

"Oh yeah," James said sarcastically. "Not such a bad time. She called me a pig, accused me of assaulting her, and stormed off in the middle of the street. That's really what I call a successful outing."

"You were trying to help her!" Sirius was indignant. "That beggar could have been a damn murderer for all she knew! Who the hell gives money to lunatics like that, anyway?"

"Evans does," James said morosely, resting his head in his hands as he sat up. "She's too nice for her own good."

"You call that nasty attitude of hers _nice_? 'Nice' is éclairs and Cauldron Cakes and treacle tart!"

"She got treacle tart-flavored ice cream when we went to Fortescue's, you know. She really likes it."

Sirius groaned. "You're infatuated with her. This isn't normal, James."

James looked up at his best friend. "She had every right to be angry. I grabbed her and practically dragged her away down a street. Evans can do what she wants and I'm in no position to tell her what to do." He sighed. "We got along much better, except for the end. We were talking about her family, and all that. Did you know she has a sister?"

Sirius's interest was piqued. "She does? Did you see her? I never knew she even had siblings." He lounged back on the coffee table nonchalantly, looking suave, a nod to his snobby and wealthy upbringing, despite being clad in Muggle jeans. "She must go to Beauxbatons, 'cause I've never heard of her at Hogwarts. Is she as hot as Evans is? Because, you know, you could have Lily and I could have her sister and we could—"

"Uh, no, actually, that wouldn't be a good idea," James cut off his string of questions before he could get too graphic in what exactly he wanted to do with Lily and her sister. "Lily called her…I think an ostrich, and said she's a bitch. Her name's Petunia and they're both named after flowers. Apparently she's a Muggle and they don't get along very well."

Sirius snorted. "I just want to know who's the bigger bitch, Lily or Petunia. It must run in the family."

"Shut it." James got up and stretched. "So what time's the Order meeting?"

Sirius checked his watch. 9:03 PM. "Uh, now."

"Crap," James groaned. "This is the fourth time in a row that we'll be late. Dumbledore said it was important this time."

"It's the Order of the bloody _Phoenix, _Prongs. It's important _every _time."

"Yeah well, people supposedly died or something this time! Dumbledore's going to be _pissed._"

"Then stop your rambling and hurry up!" Sirius already had his shoes on and was headed in the direction of the front door. "Goodbye, Ellie!" he shouted to James's mother in the other room.

Eleanor Potter came bustling out of the kitchen, tall and commanding, though smiling at the pair of boys getting ready to go out. "Bye, Sirius!" She kissed the flat-muscled boy on the cheek in a motherly way, and turned to her son. "Don't go out after the meeting, James. I want you back before midnight." She hugged him and kissed him on the cheek in the same fashion as with Sirius. She held her son out in front of her by the shoulders. "Oh, you're so grown up now," she said, tearing up with pride. "You'll be an Auror, just like your father."

James winced a bit. "Thanks, Mum. Look, uh, I have to go. We're already late for the meeting and it's at the Prewetts'."

Eleanor smiled. "Well, I'll let you boys go." As the two young men walked toward the door, she called after them, "Be safe!"

Sirius and James stepped out of the house, a mansion that was a size to rival the Prewett residence, and walked down the winding path lined with foxgloves in the height of their blooming from the front door to the street.

"Are we walking or are we Apparating?" Sirius asked James.

The taller man stared at Sirius incredulously. "You'd think we would walk all the way from Richmond to _Belgravia_?"

Sirius shrugged. "It would be good exercise."

The Potters and the Prewetts both lived in mansions in London, being two of the most affluent Wizarding families in all of England. The Potters exceeded the Prewetts in money, living in Richmond, while the latter resided in Belgravia, in the borough of Kensington and Chelsea. To get from the Potter home to the Prewetts would be to walk almost six miles.

James let out a slow, deep sigh and Disapparated. Sirius smiled to himself and followed suit.

* * *

><p>Fabian and Lily were sitting next to each other in the library, waiting for the Order of the Phoenix meeting to start. The library was the intriguing marble room that Lily had run through a couple hours before. They had descended the spiral staircase in the center of the room to the very first floor of the library, which reached all the way up to the fifth story of the building, where Lily had first encountered it. They were now seated around a fine mahogany table built to seat at least twenty people.<p>

Lily looked around her. Gideon and Molly were already there when the two of them walked in, and Molly had yelled at Fabian for, as she put it, "spiriting the poor young lady away" and ruining her rest. Fabian had not denied it, and winked at Lily with a twinkle in his eye that made her stomach flutter his sister berated him.

Dumbledore had just arrived, closely followed by Alastor Moody, whom everyone called "Mad-Eye," affectionately, Kingsley Shacklebolt, a young, serious man who had just recently joined the group, Professor McGonagall, and Arthur Weasley, Molly's fire-haired husband, who had their three children, Bill, Charlie, and Percy, in tow. It was the arrival of her children that stopped Molly from further shouting at her younger brother, as she hurried off to send the children to bed, lest they eavesdrop on the meeting.

_I had no idea Molly was married,_ Lily reflected. _She seems so young to even have three kids already. Fabian said it's because of the war. At least I know I'm sure as hell not getting married that quick…_

A few more people filtered in. Caradoc Dearborn, a slightly-balding, middle aged man sat down at the table and began talking animatedly to an emotionless Gideon about the Irish Quidditch team. Hagrid, Hogwarts's half-giant gamekeeper, came in and embraced Lily in a bone-crushing hug the moment he saw her.

"I'm sorry ta hear 'bout yer parents, Lily," he said sadly to a suffocating Lily, who found herself stuck against Hagrid's stout midsection, plastered underneath a very large arm. She had spent a lot of time with Hagrid during the school year, and the two had grown to be friends. He was a very warm, kind man with good intentions and very few cooking skills.

Lily finally extricated herself from Hagrid's hug in time to sit back down next to Fabian as Dumbledore stood up in front of the room.

"_How many people know about what happened_?" Lily hissed to Fabian.

"He said he only told Moody, Hagrid, and McGonagall," Fabian whispered back. "But I think he's telling everyone tonight."

Lily went pale.

"Are you okay?" He asked concernedly, placing a hand on her arm. "You don't have to stay here if it's too hard for you."

She swallowed hard. "I'll be fine. I just…wish I knew in advance."

Before Fabian could respond, the room fell silent, all watching the man standing at the head of the table, calling their attention.

This was the first time Lily had seen Dumbledore since that afternoon. He had changed his robes and was now clad in dark purple instead of midnight blue.

_I bet he owns them in every color of the rainbow._ Lily thought amusedly, distracting herself from her disturbing thoughts.

"Welcome back to another Order of the Phoenix meeting," Dumbledore said somberly. "Tonight is a very important one. We seem to be missing a couple of people, but we are already starting a few minutes later than intended, so we must begin now. As you may have read in my message that I sent out to each member of our group, I have some disturbing news that we must discuss…"

* * *

><p>"It's 9:10, Black!" James shot his best friend the nastiest look he could muster.<p>

"Yeah, well, it's not my fault that no one's answering the bloody door!"

"Yeah, but it _is _your fault that we're even late to begin with!"

James pounded on the ornate front door to the Prewett mansion three times, slamming his fist into the woodwork harder with each knock, hoping that someone, anyone, a house elf, even the twin brothers would answer. He was about to sink down onto the porch of the Victorian house in frustration when the door finally opened.

"Molly, thank Merlin!" James said, relieved as Molly shook her head in disbelief at the pair standing in the doorway.

The red-haired woman ushered them into the house. "You two always have to make an entrance, don't you?" she scolded admonishingly.

"Yes, _mother,_ we do," Sirius answered facetiously. James kicked him in the leg as they strode quickly toward the library, led by a disapproving Molly.

They walked into the library as Dumbledore was speaking.

"But before we talk about that, I have an announcement to make. We have a new member of the Order of the Phoenix this evening-" he was saying, as James and Sirius shuffled in as discreetly as possible behind him. They did not escape his notice.

"Ah, Mister Potter and Mister Black have decided to join us this evening," he smiled placidly as the two boys bashfully took their seats. "Good evening sirs. I'm so glad you decided to grace us with your presences."

The two cringed. "Sorry," James mumbled.

"That's quite all right, Mister Potter. Now, as I was saying, we have a new member joining us tonight. Miss Lily Evans, would you please stand?"

_Lily Evans?_ James didn't dare believe it, but he looked up nonetheless. Standing up, not three seats away from him, was Lily. She looked radiant as ever, almost the same as she had last night, if a little exhausted. He looked from Lily to Sirius, who looked just as shocked as he was, and then back to Lily, who he noticed was next to Fabian Prewett, who was beaming up at her with a smile that James recognized on him. It was the smile he always had around the girls he was after, and James couldn't help but feel a twinge of jealousy as everyone clapped for the beautiful girl standing up, looking slightly embarrassed by the attention. The slightest flush of pink was spreading through the heights of her alabaster cheeks and he decided that yes, Lily looked more gorgeous than ever before.

As she sat back down, James finally managed to tear his gaze away from her.

"Why the hell is _she _here?" Sirius whispered.

"She joined."

"No shit, you prat."

Before they could continue their whispered conversation, Dumbledore called back the group's attention.

"Now, with the arrival of Miss Evans also comes the arrival of great tragedy," he went on, regret in his blue eyes. "In my message to each of you, I mentioned that there have been more deaths." He looked at Lily and their eyes met for a moment. "Miss Evans's parents have been killed."

A collective gasp rose from the group and all eyes turned to the young woman who was staring resolutely at the table.

"We cannot continue asking the _Daily Prophet _to cover up these deaths," Dumbledore continued. "I have asked them to delay publishing news of this set of murders, but that is all they are willing to do, until we can further discuss this as we are tonight. The Prewett murders were the last ones they would agree to conceal." He looked at Lily, who would not lift her eyes from the table she was seated at. "Miss Evans, if it is not too much for you to do, could you please recount your story?"

Lily rose once more, and this time, all of the color in her face was gone. James could see now that there was darkness under her eyes. It looked like she hadn't slept at all since they had walked the streets of London a scant twenty four hours ago.

And for the first time since last night, he heard her speak. In her voice there was a sadness like none he had heard in his entire life.

"Yesterday was the first day of the holidays. I went out with a group of friends from school to the Leaky Cauldron to start the summer off, and my parents were at home with my sister, Petunia. Her boyfriend was supposed to be coming over for dinner, but I didn't want to be around for it and my parents knew that, because my sister and I don't get along very well, so they let me go out."

Lily looked at James. He stared at her, his mouth ajar. Her eyes were alight as they stared into his, and in that very moment, and he knew she was talking to him directly. "A couple people had to leave, so one of my friends and I stepped out into the street to walk for a while." Those beautiful emeralds were burning now. "There was a beggar in these bright clothes sitting on the steps to an old building, and she called out to me, asking for money. I gave her some coins, and after I handed them to her, I realized I accidentally gave her Galleons.

"She knew my name. She kept staring at me after I gave her the money and I couldn't look away. And then she said my full name. I had no idea who she was, but somehow, she knew me."

James saw Fabian take a sharp intake of breath at this. He was liking the Prewett boy less and less for some reason…

"She kept repeating, 'you are not safe' and grabbed my arm," Lily went on. "The friend I was walking with pulled me away and we ran a few blocks away from her. I decided that after what happened in the street back there, I couldn't stay out. I Apparated to the end of my street and felt like something strange was going on."

James couldn't tear his eyes away from her, even though she had long since broken their gaze. _So _this _was what happened after she left, _he thought. Somehow, he felt guilty. Like he could have done something to help her. To stop this from happening to her.

"I ran down my street and saw the Dark Mark over my house. The door was hanging off the hinges, and I couldn't—" her voice finally broke. "I couldn't just stand out there. I went inside, even though I knew it was dangerous. Everything on the downstairs floor was destroyed. I went upstairs and there was a light on in my parents' bedroom—and I—I opened…the door…"

Tears finally flowed down her face and there was little James wanted to do more in his entire life than walk across the room that felt larger than it ever did at any prior Order meeting, and comfort her. But instead it was Fabian who took her hand while she stood there, crying silently in front of the entire Order of the Phoenix.

Sirius kicked James under the table. They looked at each other and shared the same, silent question: What was going on with Prewett and Evans?

Whatever it was, it was gone a few seconds later as Lily took a deep breath and spoke once more.

"My mother was lying on the floor. She was dead," she said, as steadily as she could. "My father was in the corner, alive. He looked like he was in pain, and there was….nothing I could do." Her voice grew softer. "There were two of them. Two Death Eaters. And they killed him, right in front of me, so I could see it." She forced more strength into her voice, and James could hear it. "It was Antonin Dolohov. I didn't see his face, but I know his voice and his laugh. The other man…I know it was a man because I heard his voice too, but I don't know who it was. I recognized his voice, but I just couldn't place it. It was someone I knew, but I'm not sure whom. After they killed Dad, they tried to come after me. They were shooting spells at me. I turned around and did a Stunning spell, but I'm not sure if it worked. If it did, it doesn't really matter. They shot a Killing Curse at me but I managed to Disapparate in time because they mustn't have thought to do an Anti-Disapparition Jinx on it before. I went to Hogsmeade, ran up to the school, and asked Dumbledore if I could join the Order. I came here this afternoon." She finished her tale rather abruptly and stood for an extra moment or two before sitting back down.

No one spoke. James stared at her, hardly able to believe what he had just heard. Looking around, it appeared that no one else could, either. Faces ranged from shocked to horrified to deeply, incredibly sad.

_If only I followed her home…If only I made her stay...What would have been different?_

"Thank you, Miss Evans," Dumbledore gently said at last. "It takes a lot of courage to tell a story like that to so many people, so soon after it has happened. You truly are a brave young woman."

James could hardly think. Lily's parents were dead. Lily had been so happy that day, too. They had talked. She had told him about her family, about her parents, about her sister. She had told him that she didn't want to tell her parents about the war, but she had in the end because she wanted them to know just in case something bad happened…

The rest of the meeting passed relatively uneventfully. The Order discussed what measures would be taken against further attacks and who would go to investigate the remains of the Evans home. Now and then a member would speculate as to the mysterious beggar's identity. Occasionally someone would ask Lily another question about what had happened the previous night, and James would perk up, listening to the sound of her voice.

After some time, the meeting was finally adjourned. The Order of the Phoenix members bid each other farewell as they all went their separate ways as usual, while this time also both congratulating Lily and offering their condolences to her. And it was she that James was trying to reach, across the room.

"Prongs, where are you going?" Sirius called after James as he walked away from his friend.

He did not answer, instead trying to make his way towards that girl, that enigmatic girl. He had never before seen her cry until tonight…

She locked eyes with him from across the room, across the people standing in between them. His hazel eyes looked into her perfect orbs as she smiled. But it wasn't a smile of happiness. It was one of sadness. Of pain.

And then she was gone. She broke away from his gaze and glided, like a dream, out of the room. And he knew it would be futile to try to follow.

He walked back to Sirius, who was standing in the doorway of the library, watching him. "Let's go."

The two best friends walked together out of the library and out of the mansion, into the street. James paused.

"You know what, Sirius? I feel like walking for a bit."

Sirius looked surprised. "Oh, well, okay. Do you…want me to walk with—"

"No." James said harshly. "I just want to be alone for a bit."

Sirius nodded, reached in his pocket, and pulled out a mirror. "Call me if you need anything."

They exchanged one last look, and, as they always had, as brothers by bond of friendship, understood exactly how the other felt.

And so James slowly walked away down the London street, in the direction of the River Thames, looking up at the stars and wondering if there would ever be a way to change the cards that fate so cruelly laid out for the innocent, beautiful auburn-haired girls of this world.

* * *

><p>The Order of the Phoenix meeting had ended at about 10:30 PM, and immediately afterwards, Lily took the coldest shower of her life. It was the first time she bathed since she arrived in London, and she felt much better for it.<p>

She had a plan.

As she stepped out of the luxurious, marble-tiled shower and into a fluffy white towel, she mused on what she was going to do.

Lily managed to get Fabian to explain to her the security on the Prewett mansion.

"You cannot Apparate in or out," he had told her as he walked her back to her room after the meeting. "But anyone can come through the front door if they have a key or if they're let it. The building itself is no secret because it's pretty difficult to hide a mansion that's been here for centuries, but what goes on inside is what we don't tell people about."

Fabian had given her a key to the mansion, as well. There was a system that the Prewetts had in place, and there were always house elves watching the door at night to ensure that no one would be coming in or out, for security's sake.

_I'll just use the window, then._

By the time the grandfather clock in the main foyer of the mansion struck eleven, Lily was in her darkened room, illuminated only by the moonlight, dressed in Muggle street clothes. She had transfigured the sheets on her bed into ropes and charmed them into tying a strong knot on one of the bedposts. She dangled the ropes out the window and tugged on them a little to test their strength. Satisfied, she stepped towards the window, took hold of the ropes, and climbed out into the night, wand in her pocket.

She closed her eyes, too scared to look down as she lowered herself down the ropes.

_One, two, three four, _she counted to herself as she went down, passing hand below hand as she descended the five stories to the earth below. She glanced up at the clear night sky and the crescent moon, scarcely different from its appearance the evening before, and prayed that no one would see her.

She finally reached the ground, jumping off the ropes and into the grass in the Prewett garden, landing like a cat.

Lily pointed her wand at the still-dangling ropes and silently cast a Disillusionment Charm on them so no one would notice them hanging from the fifth story window above.

She darted through the elaborate back garden like a faery to the front of the house, through the grass, and onto the sidewalk. Lily was going to go back home. She had to see what was left, and Dumbledore's orders be damned. She wasn't going to wait for any Order members to go check to see if the house was safe. She was an Order member now too, so she could damn well go check it herself.

But before she went home, Lily wanted to walk. She wanted to think about boys named James, about boys named Fabian, about insane beggars calling after her in the night. She wanted to think about what was her future now.

And so Lily slowly walked away down the London street, in the direction of the River Thames, looking up at the stars and wondering if there would ever be a way to get back the life she thought she would have forever.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note:<em>

_Holy goodness, 25 pages and almost 11,000 words! That was a long one. When I laid it out, I knew it would be big, but I didn't realize it would be THIS big!_

_Thank you to whomever managed to suffer through reading that. I honestly could have split it into two, but the second chapter I would have made out of this would have been awkwardly short, soooo I left it as just one._

_I was OVERJOYED by the response I got for the last chapter. Chapter Three alone got over double the reviews that One and Two did COMBINED! It motivates me so much to hear from you guys, even if it's just that you like it or want another update. I PROMISE that it helps me update faster. I swear, I was so happy by what I got from you guys that I almost cried. A happy cry, of course. Not a sad cry. So, really, thank you, guys. It meant so much._

_Much love, as always,_

_The Silent Rain._


	5. London

Chapter Five: London

_And I don't understand all the things you've seen  
>But I'm slipping in between<br>You and your big dreams._

It's always you and my big dreams.

_-Something Corporate_

* * *

><p>Night had always been Lily's favorite time. While all the world around her was asleep, she was alert, living. Walking in the night always felt like a secret ritual; while everyone else was safe in their beds, she was alive and no one knew what she was doing. She could never think of a word for the feeling. Holy, perhaps, but that word still hardly seemed to fit. Maybe blessed, but not quite.<p>

Sacred. That was it.

The night was only increased in its perfection as she strode through the silent streets of one of London's wealthiest neighborhoods. There was not a soul besides her outside at that very moment. She glided past private garden squares owned by only the richest, most fashionable people of England. The Victorian-terraced townhouses seemed to blur past her as she lost herself in her own thoughts.

Lily both longed for and dreaded the moment when she would go back home. Was her school trunk still there? Her clothes? Her books? What was left? And Petunia…Dumbledore had found out that her sister was alive; she was living with Vernon for the time being. She had left before the murders.

_She didn't even try to contact me…_

Her heart broke even more, if it was even possible. She knew Petunia hardly loved her anymore. Her bitterness and jealousy had taken away any affection she ever had for Lily.

_Pet…oh, Pet, I'm sorry._

Tears came to her eyes. She stopped in her tracks and stared upwards at the night sky. The stars glittered above her as she sat down on the sidewalk, back against a brick garden wall, and listened to the sounds of the absolute silence upon the city.

_Not now,_ Lily told herself firmly. _Save your tears for later. _

Thoughts ran through her head. Of Petunia. Of her parents. Of Molly and James and Fabian and all the absolutely impossible things that had happened to since last night.

Had it really only been a day?

She hugged her knees to her chest. She realized, at that moment, that there was no one she wanted to talk to more than Alice at that very moment.

"We're not kids anymore," she whispered.

_All those silly plans we had. Running away to France and plotting a way to marry Prince Andrew and Prince Charles. We have to grow up now…_

A taxi rumbled by in the street, headlights piercing the darkness, pulling her from her reverie. It was the only car to drive down the quiet avenue in all the time that had passed, and it was gone in a moment, rounding a corner further up the street. Lily sighed and stood up. She could only sit there for so long before she'd grow restless, like always. She needed adventure. Excitement. She could think while she walked. For now, she was headed for the river.

She strode along, as a breeze slowly picked up. It was a gentle, warm wind, and it comforted her as she walked down the street, enjoying the sounds of the night.

Lily rarely ever went to London. She was far from wealthy and lived just north of Manchester, a long way from the city. She was a frequent visitor of Diagon Alley, that was true, but it was uncommon that she spent time enjoying Muggle London, despite her parentage. She only had a slight idea where she was going, especially since all Fabian had told her was that the Prewett mansion was in Belgravia. Maybe she'd get him to show her around, she thought. Lily had only a rough idea of the neighborhoods of London, so she was judging her location by street signs and sheer guesswork to figure out where she was headed.

By now it was almost midnight. The crescent moon was still high above her as she neared the corner of the avenue, the streetlamps flickering. She squinted through the darkness to read the sign. Victoria Street. Finally a road she recognized. Turning down it, she continued her meandering walk towards the Thames.

_So what is it with those boys?_ Lily wondered, strolling down the quiet street. She hadn't known that James was in the Order of the Phoenix.

_It doesn't surprise me, though. He always liked adventure and all that. Fighting the forces of evil was always right up his alley, except when he was a part of the evil, _she thought cynically.

He had changed, that was true. But somehow, she still could not forget who he used to be. The arrogant, conceited boy he was, graced with a touch of sadism. Maybe inside, for all those years, he was insecure underneath his cocky façade, she reflected. He was probably just as self-conscious as Severus Snape was when he dangled him upside-down by his ankle that warm day in fifth year…

But Snape was no part of her life anymore.

Severus Snape was the boy she had met when she was a little girl. They lived nearby one another, in the same neighborhood. He was the one that introduced her to magic and told her what she was when they were very young. He told her she was a witch.

But slowly, as it so often happens, they grew apart. He fell into a group of Slytherins that practiced Dark Magic, while Lily stayed with her Gryffindor friends. She had stood up for him, despite everything that happened to their friendship, when James had hung up upside-down in front of dozens of onlookers. And yet, he pushed her away and called her a Mudblood.

She would accept no apology from Snape, no matter how much he begged her to. He was nothing like the boy she knew all those years ago, and she knew the real Sev wasn't going to come back.

He might as well be dead to her.

_Enough on that, girl, _Lily scolded herself, shaking her head as if doing so would remove the thoughts from her mind.

But James. He had been at the Order meeting. That look in his eyes when he gazed at her…but before she could finish her thoughts, she heard quiet footsteps behind her.

_Who the hell else is out at this time?_

She picked up her pace, checking to make sure her wand was in her pocket, as she heard a voice slur, "Hey there, pretty thing."

Lily stopped dead and whirled around. A haggard-looking man with dirty, straggly blond hair was standing there, peering at her lewdly.

"So what's a beautiful girl like you doing out here at this time of night?" He strode towards her, weaving back and forth. He clearly was drunk.

Lily backed up nervously as he drew closer. He was still a few feet away but she could smell strong alcohol on him. There was no one around to help her, even though Victoria Street was typically a busy road. Not a single car had driven past since the one before she turned onto Victoria.

"What's a tramp like _you_ doing around here?" she countered snappishly, despite her fear. "Get your dirty arse back to some Brixton gutter."

He snorted. "I guess not all o' us can be like you, rich bitch." He moved closer. "Now give us a kiss."

She stumbled backwards as he tried to grab at her and turned around to run, but he grabbed at the collar of her shirt.

"Don't you try to run, pretty girlie," he mumbled, clutching at her. "You can come home wi' me…my mates'll be impressed wi' you. I wanna know, with yer ginger hair, does that carpet really match the curt-"

Lily let out a bloodcurdling shriek as she drew up her knee and kicked him in the groin as hard as she could, simultaneously ripping his hands off the collar of her shirt. She turned around and sprinted down the street, not bothering to see whether or not he followed.

After a few minutes, she slowed down and finally looked back. No one. She was safe from the man, and there was life on this part of the street. A few cars were stopped at traffic lights at the intersection a block away, so at least, if something else happened, there would be help.

_My luck absolutely sucks, _she thought resentfully. _Beggars, drunks, what else is next? An escaped tiger from the London Zoo?_

_Fate must be out to get me…Hah, rich bitch. If only he knew._

She turned down another street, praying not to find any more danger around the corner. It was surprising that the drunk Muggle was the first person and only person she encountered on her walk. Though it was a weeknight at midnight, there were almost always people roaming about London, no matter what the hour. Though certainly quite strong despite her petite frame, Lily doubted that she could physically fight off a man much larger than she was; at least, not without magic.

Still slightly shaken up from the incident, it was little worse than anything else she had dealt with in the past couple of days. It wasn't the first time she had an experience like that, either; she had gotten mugged once in Manchester when going out with Alice in the evening to see the Muggle movies for fun.

_The guy in Manchester was insane and had a gun, which is certainly much worse than a man that's wasted and about to pass out, _she thought ruefully. _Although that's still really damn bad. If I wouldn't run the risk of getting my wand snapped, I'd have liked to hex his mind out of him…_

As Lily continued walking, she could see the river in the distance, where it was crossed by Westminster Bridge. She wasn't very far now. A pair of French tourists hurried past on the other side of the road, presumably enjoying the view of the mighty river at midnight.

The House of Parliament were lit up beautifully and looked exactly like a postcard, with Big Ben piercing the sky, almost touching the stars. For a moment, she paused on the sidewalk and gazed at it, impressed. She tore herself away from it after a minute and forced herself to keep walking. But still, her feet were beginning to hurt…

_I guess I'll go sit on the bridge then, _she decided. She could see the lights of the city that way. She could see the world around her and watch the lives of the rest of London from afar.

* * *

><p>James was wandering around London. He had ended up Apparating into Diagon Alley, and had sat at the bar in the Leaky Cauldron, saying nothing and drinking Firewhiskey after Firewhiskey while Tom the bartender watched him with a curious sort of nervousness. It was the first time he had seen the Potter boy look so haunted.<p>

Well, he supposed, everyone had their own demons inside.

By the time James left the Leaky Cauldron, it was half past eleven. His mother was likely driving herself mad with worry especially when Sirius came home without him, and though he loved her with all of his heart, he still could not bring himself to go home. His thoughts were elsewhere and he had no desire to talk to her or Sirius.

It took a lot to get him drunk. He and Sirius had been sneaking alcohol since they were thirteen, and he had built up a tolerance to it. James's father had caught him with a bottle of Muggle beer one summer and yelled for hours before telling his mother, who consequently yelled at him for _weeks._

"_What am I going to tell the family?" she had wailed, head buried in her hands. _

"_Er, you don't have to tell them _anything_, Mum," he answered awkwardly, unsure whether he should try to comfort his sobbing mother or run to his room and hide._

"_Before we know it you'll be an alcoholic!" Eleanor cried. "You'll spend your life in the streets and the _saloons_, Merlin forbid, and oh!" She reached out and hugged him tightly as James patted her on the back, clearly uncomfortable._

As he walked, he winced at the memory. Yes, James's mother was the queen of overreacting.

James had a very high liquor tolerance. The fact that the four Firewhiskeys had he had downed at the Leaky Cauldron only took him very slightly away from his sober state did absolutely nothing to help his current moodiness.

He wanted to say something to Lily when he had seen her at the meeting. He wanted to say something, anything, to comfort her. But he couldn't. She slipped away, like she always did.

The girl was an enigma, he decided. She was a mystery that he longed to solve. She was up and down, a fiery ice. Or perhaps an icy fire…did it matter either way?

He was walking towards Westminster Bridge when he saw a girl across the road, headed in the same direction that he was. For some reason, this annoyed him slightly. He had wanted to be alone, and even if the girl, whoever the hell she was, didn't talk to him, her presence on the bridge with him was enough to bother him when all he desired was to continue living in his solitary world.

James looked away from the girl and focused on the road ahead of him. The sidewalk was ending; he had little choice but to cross the road, unless he wanted to walk against the admittedly-scant traffic in the dark. He slowed his pace and crossed over to the other side, even more annoyed that now he would have to be closer to the girl than before.

_I can't go anywhere without company, can I…, _he thought wryly.

He looked again at the girl. She was passing beneath a streetlamp and her person was cast into relief. She had beautiful red hair cascading halfway down her back, clad in black jeans and a dark T-shirt. It took him almost no time at all to recognize who it was walking in front of him, but he could not believe it.

But he saw her. His eyes couldn't possibly be deceiving him, unless this was a dream. If it was, James willed himself not to wake.

Lily.

She picked up her pace significantly as he reached the sidewalk about twenty feet behind her. No doubt she heard his footsteps or saw him crossing the road. But did she know it was him?

He increased his step to match hers, and as he slowly drew closer, he heard her nervously humming snippets of classical music. They were almost onto the bridge now, and he was mere steps behind her.

"Bolero?" James asked, the words escaping his mouth. "I didn't know you were a fan of classical music, Evans."

She gasped almost inaudibly, but it did not escape his notice as she whirled around to face him, a look of fright and vulnerability on her face that he had never seen before.

"_Potter?_" she hissed furiously, the weakness leaving her face as she recognized him.

"That's my name," he answered wryly, fixated by the beautiful young woman in front of him. Merlin, she was gorgeous when she was angry. Hell, she was gorgeous no matter what…

"You nearly gave me a heart attack," she muttered, starting to walk away.

James followed her. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," she snapped. "I only climbed out of a damn window, got harassed by a _fucking drunkard _that wanted to _rape _me, and now got surprised by you. I'm just amazing."

"Well, I'm sorry," he said softly, walking up next to her. "I didn't mean to scare you."

Lily sighed, the anger that had flared up for an instant dissipating almost as quickly as it came. "It's all right. I just didn't expect this."

He smiled almost sardonically. "Thanks. But really, I didn't know you were a fan of Maurice Ravel. He's one of my favorite composers."

She glanced up at him. "You listen to classical?"

James grinned. "It's the only music my mother would ever have played at those tacky dinner parties she used to hold. I've been going to those things ever since I left the cradle."

"I keep forgetting you're rich," she said, rolling her eyes. James couldn't help but wonder a tiny bit where the weak, hurting girl from earlier had gone. She seemed to be back to her usual quick-tempered self. "I bet everything down to your toilets is made of gold and platinum."

He chose to ignore her snarky comment. "So why are you out here, anyway?" he asked instead, looking at her intently.

Lily did not speak, instead looking straight ahead. They were almost halfway across Westminster Bridge, and the River Thames reflected the lights of the city and the moon that still hung in the night sky above them. She stopped walking and leaned over the railing on the side of the bridge, gazing out across the water. James followed suit, standing next to her alongside the railing.

When she finally spoke, all she said was, "I suppose I could ask you the exact question."

The pair looked out at the river, stretching for miles in front of them. The lights on the water gleamed as the tides gently ripped in the delicate, warm summer breeze.

"Well," James said at last. "I guess I just didn't want to go home."

Lily looked at him, an indescribable expression in her emerald eyes. After a moment, she turned back to the water. "Same reason for me, I suppose."

"You were going home?" James turned to her in near-horror. "As in back to your…your _house_?"

"Of course," she said with a wan smile. "Where did you think I meant?"

"But…why?"

"I'll tell you why if _you _tell _me_ why."

James heaved a sigh. "I just have a lot on my mind and I don't want to go home and face my mother and Sirius. They ask too many questions, and I guess I just don't have much to say to them. But last night…I'm sorry for dragging you away from the beggar in the street. I was just worried that she was going to hurt you. She was crazy. She's probably lost her mind, whoever she was. But I was scared too, and I wanted to get you out of there, before she could do anything more. If I knew what was going to happen to you when you left, I would have…done something. I honestly don't know what, but I would have done something. Gone home with you. Made you stay with me. I don't know. I would have tried to keep you safe. Instead I let you go and look what happened." He looked down at his hands in distress. "I'm sorry."

She was touched. "Don't be sorry," she said gently, fingertips grazing his forearm. "There was nothing you could have done. My mother was already gone by the time I got home, and they would have killed my father whether I showed up or not. It's just a matter of whether they would have waited for me at my house or hunted me down. And if they tried to hunt me down, they'd go after you, too. I mean, it's _you. _James Potter. Your father's the best Auror in Britain."

It was true, and James knew it. He was just as much of a target as Lily was, and these events only made him surer of that. His father, Joseph, was one of the most famous Aurors in the country, and James wanted to follow in his footsteps. The entire Potter clan was a risk to the Death Eaters' strength, and they would want to annihilate the family. But still, James didn't want to see the girl hurt, and if he could protect her, he would, no matter the cost.

He glanced down at her delicate, pale fingertips on his arm for a split second, but did not react. He looked back up at her as quickly as he had looked down. "Yeah well, no matter what you say, I'm still going to feel like crap about this." He sighed darkly. "Your turn now. I want to hear about this climbing-out-the-window nonsense. I guess you're too sophisticated and adventurous to just use the front door."

"I want to see what's left," she said simply. "Of my house. All my things. Fabian gave me a key to the house and all, but I can't get out through the front door since apparently the Prewett family is serious about security and they have elves guarding the door all night. I ended up climbing out the window and somehow, no one noticed." She beamed with pride at this achievement. "Alice and I used to do it all the time when I'd sleep over at her house in summers…anyway, so I managed to get out and I wandered for a while. I had no clue where I was besides that I was somewhere in Belgravia. I found a street I knew and followed it to here, and along the way a drunk guy came up and tried to bring me back to his house for a gangbang with his buddies. I kicked him in the balls and ran, and ended up here. I wanted to walk for a while before I went home. The nighttime clears my head, although I've got to say, my time in London has been less than welcoming." Lily snorted. "Insane beggars and drunk guys. The city loves me, doesn't she?"

James knew he couldn't blame her for wanting to go home, but she couldn't. It was too dangerous. Ignoring her quip, he only said, "You can't go home."

She faced him full-on, her eyes blazing. "Oh really? I'd like to see you stop me, Potter."

"You're about to," he said, a hint of coldness in his voice. "If there are Death Eaters there, waiting for you to come back, you'll get killed and there will be blood on my hands for not stopping you."

"I'm not your responsibility," Lily snapped. "You don't need to treat me like a little girl."

He couldn't resist. "But you _are _one."

He saw it coming. She drew back her hand and began swinging her palm towards his face. James caught her hand before it could make contact with his cheek, but he could feel the force of it as he stopped her.

"Don't call me a little girl," she growled angrily, glaring at her wrist where James was holding her to stop her from hitting him. "I'm not helpless and you can stop treating me like a stupid toddler that can't even feed itself."

She wrenched her wrist free from his grip and stormed away across the bridge.

James stared after her in shock for a moment, before taking off at a run, following her down the walkway.

_I can't let her go alone. Not if something happens again. I feel guilty enough as it is…_

"Evans!" he shouted, trying to catch up with her as she sped up, trying to evade him. "I'm sorry, okay?"

"Screw off!" she yelled back to him. She stopped in her tracks and began to make the turn required to Disapparate as James caught up to her and a car pulled up slowly besides the pair.

Lily stopped when she realized it was a police car.

"Dammit," James muttered as a police officer stepped out of the car, its red and blue lights piercing the night. "Look what you got us into, Evans."

The officer walked towards the pair standing on the bridge walkway, his police badge gleaming.

"Do you two need any help over here?" the officer asked warily, unsure of what was transpiring between the two teens. The little redhead girl was beautiful, that was for sure. "You're out awfully late for a weeknight."

"It's the summer holidays," Lily answered smoothly, giving the young officer her smoothest smile. "My boyfriend and I were just taking a stroll and enjoying the sights. Big Ben looks so beautiful on nights like these, don't you think?" She gave him her sweetest grin.

_Boyfriend?_ James wondered.

The bobby smiled back at Lily and James couldn't help but feel a tiny twinge of jealousy. "Are you sure nothing's going on here?" The police officer, who couldn't be more than twenty five, faced James with a dark look on his face. "You looked like you were trying to get into some domestic dispute with her, young man. Chasing her down and all."

"We're just fine, sir," James said shortly. He could tell the man was an arse just from his voice, and he already hated him.

"You were chasing her down a street, _boy,_" the officer stressed the last word, as if to assert his own superiority and age over James. "Just watch what else you do. Other men in the police force might have taken you in for questioning if they saw what I did."

Lily recaptured his attention, leaning in towards him. "Don't worry officer," she said sweetly. "I can handle him."

The cop smiled back. "If you're sure, sweetheart." He pulled out a piece of paper and scrawled his phone number down on it. "If you ever need something, feel free to ring me," he grinned with a hint of lasciviousness. "I'd be able to help you with _anything _you need."

With that, he got back into his car and turned off the lights, smiling at Lily as he drove away and sending one last glare James's way.

When his car was out of sight, Lily made a retching noise. "He's a pig."

"I noticed," James said, annoyance in his tone. "He's way too old for you."

"I wouldn't go out with him anyway." She contorted her porcelain-like face into a grimace. "I go for guys with class. Sorry about the boyfriend thing, by the way. I was thinking fast and it was the only thing I could come up with on the spot."

"Don't be sorry," James's mouth went dry. "I don't mind."

Lily rolled her eyes. "Yeah okay. Now if you _really _don't mind, I have places to go." She looked around to make sure that were no people in sight and began to make the turn, again, to Disapparate.

"Wait." James grabbed her arm.

"Yes?" She stopped at looked at him stonily.

"I'm coming with you."

Her eyes narrowed. "And why is that?"

"I want to be with you. I want to support you through this. I don't want to let you go alone, and I don't want you breaking Dumbledore's orders alone. If something happens, I want to be there and take the blame for it so you don't get in trouble." James looked at her intently. _This is a bad idea, _he thought. _But I don't care. It might be dangerous. Maybe they're there waiting for her, maybe they're not. But I want to be there in case something happens._

She sighed. "Fine. If you're that damn desperate." Lily held out her arm to him and he took it as she turned and began to Disapparate. She envisioned the end of her street, exactly as she had the night before when she left James in the road. As the London world disappeared around them, she took one last look at the glittering river as it reflected the moon in the darkness, and thought for one single moment that she heard the voice of the beggar calling to her once more as the earth slipped away.

* * *

><p>James had never been to a town like this before. He was rich and his life was filled with prestige, far above the ranks of lower middle-class suburbs on the outskirts of Manchester. The houses were fairly old and the neighborhood had an air of being slightly overgrown, like a hedge that hasn't been trimmed in months. He hadn't realized that this was where Lily came from.<p>

It was half past one in the morning as the pair walked down her street and Lily gestured down a side road. The sign read, "Spinner's End."

"That's where Snape lives," she said quietly. "Or used to live. I don't know anymore. We haven't talked in years now."

James held back a snort, only because he could tell Lily was perturbed. He hated Snape. _It's good for her that they haven't,_ he thought. _She can do better than the likes of him, any day._

They strode purposefully down the street, with its large trees towering overhead. The road turned sharply, and around the bend, Lily stopped. They stood in front of a moderately-sized house that had apparently been very well-kept.

Except now it wasn't.

The shutters were ripped off the siding of the house, and the front door was hanging on by a hinge. The Dark Mark symbol was gone, but it was obvious to any passersby that something truly terrible had happened there. Garbage of all sorts was strewn across the lawn and the cars in the driveway destroyed, broken glass from the windshield and windows everywhere.

_How did no Muggles call the police about this?_

Tearing his gaze away from the wreckage, James looked at Lily out of the corner of his eye, and he could see tears welling up. He put his arm around her and she did not protest verbally, but instead moved away towards the door.

She pulled out her wand and whispered, "_Lumos._"

As the wandtip ignited, she put one foot over the threshold, halfway into the wrecked house.

"Come on, James," she whispered, holding out her hand to him, beckoning him to join her.

He silently walked forward and took her hand. Together, the two seventeen-year-olds braced themselves for whatever lay ahead of them, and what they would find.

Even if there were no Death Eaters hiding in the remains of the Evans home, lurking in the shadows, poised for the right moment to attack, James knew that this would be a painful night.

* * *

><p><em>AN: Sorry for how long it took to update! I had AP exams a couple weeks back and they were KILLER. But hey, I survived! So tell me (in a review, of course lovelies,) how you liked the chapter. I would reaaaally like reviews to make me feel better, especially after my horrible exams, and because last weekend I got in a car accident. Before you all get worried, don't freak out, I'm okay. It was pretty small. Basically, I was coming off of an entrance ramp while driving and the SUV behind me hit me. No airbags went off and no injuries were to be had, but my dad now needs to replace the bumper on the back of his FOUR MONTH OLD CAR, and it's gonna cost him $300, at least, and I've got to contribute to help pay for it because it's partially my fault. Needless to say, he's not very happy, and I'm still pretty shaken up and feel really bad about it. The woman was really apologetic, but meh. It wasn't very fun. _

_Enough on that. So you know that little abbreviation, R&R? Read and review? Well, you've just done the reading part, so it's about time y'all start reviewing! Pretty please?_

_Love,_

_The Silent Rain._


	6. Coming Home

Chapter Six: Coming Home

_And the rangers stream out of their cabins,  
>They are the hunters, we are the rabbits.<br>And maybe we don't wanna be found.  
>Maybe we don't want them tracking us down.<em>

_-A Fine Frenzy_

* * *

><p>The destroyed house was silent as the pair stepped into the darkened foyer. There was not a single sound, save for the still-ticking, weathered grandfather clock standing next to the door. Somehow, the clock had survived the ordeal of last night and time still wore on: solid, ancient, and sorrowful. Time would not stop for them. Wands drawn and alight, James and Lily ventured further in.<p>

The chairs were overturned everywhere. The living room was as much of a disaster as Lily had remembered it being the night before, when she had been here. Picture frames that once held photographs of their family were lying shattered on the ground in pieces, and those fleeting memories, those quick moments that were made permanent on delicate paper, were broken around her. She gulped and did her best not to fall prey to the recollections of what had happened. Of what she had gone through here.

"_Come on," _Lily breathed, stepping over armchair stuffing and broken glass from the china cabinet towards the kitchen situated in the back of the house. James grabbed her arm before she could move any further.

"Wait," he hissed. He wasn't used to Lily being like this. He had always been the reckless, hot-headed one, but not this time. The rule-loving, goody-two-shoes prefect he had known appeared to be gone. He had to be cautious for her now. "_Homenum revelio." _

Nothing happened. No sound. No movement. Nothing.

"It's safe," James said softly. "There's no one around."

Lily looked at him through the darkness, permeated by the soft glow of the wandlight. "How did you…"

"Remus taught it to me once. He found it in some Defense Against the Dark Arts book he was reading."

She smiled wanly. "It figures." Lily stepped towards the kitchen, still careful not to step on the shattered glass that coated the ground. She covered the short distance to the kitchen in just a few strides. The dinner table was cleared completely, save for a half-empty glass of water sitting on her mother's side of the table. A few pots and pans laid scattered on the ground, but aside from that, little was amiss. A vase of flowers was sitting on the counter top; they had not been there when Lily left. She could only assume that Vernon had brought them over as a gift for Petunia. He had been supposed to come over for dinner, and apparently he had.

Lily couldn't help but wonder. _What happened to Vernon and Petunia?_

"There's nothing," Lily muttered. "Let's go…upstairs."

She looked pained at this, James could see it quite plainly. "Do you want me to go up first to make sure nothing's—" he began, but Lily cut him off.

"Of course not." She looked very determined. "I'm fine."

But he could still see the fear in her eyes. It was there, and no matter how hard she tried to mask it, it was undeniably present in her expression. After all these years, he knew her well enough to see it.

Lily strode past him, almost pushing him out of the way as she headed towards the stairs, leaving him no choice but to follow her. The stairs creaked as they ascended, the tortured house groaning beneath them.

The light in her parents' bedroom was still on, as it had been the night before when she rushed into her home in terror. Everything was exactly as it had been, and it was chilling. It replayed in her mind. Her dead mother on the other side of that door. Were they still there?

She had two choices. She could open the door and face her nightmare, or she could run; but really, she only had one option. She had come this far from London. Was she really going to run after all of this?

There was no other choice.

With James by her side, she took one last deep breath and pushed open the door.

The hallway was flooded with light from the room, and it was empty. No one living or dead was on the other side of the door.

Lily gasped and stepped in.

There was nothing. The corner where had father had been was empty. She ran to it and crumpled to the ground as the hysterics began.

She let out a bloodcurdling cry and hugged her knees to her chest, but the tears wouldn't come. She screamed at the top of her lungs and buried her face into her knees, but still the tears would not come. The Death Eaters took everything from her. Not just her parents' lives, but their bodies, too. And soon, she knew, they would be back to take hers.

She would never see her family again, not even in their death.

Lily felt James touch her shoulder as she screamed wordlessly. It was the same thing each time.

Deep breath, scream. Deep breath, scream. Over and over.

"Lily," he whispered into her ear. "Lily, it's okay." He sat down next to her, back against the wall, and put his arm around her comfortingly. "It's going to be all right."

She stopped screaming, but only because the tears finally came. Her eyes were gushing salt water as she turned and sobbed into James's shoulder, drawing rattling breaths in between gasps of tears. Her parents were dead, but that was not enough. Of course it wouldn't be enough. She would never see them. No funerals. Nothing to bury. Nothing to say goodbye to.

James hugged her, rubbing her back as she cried, her tears soaking his shirt. She had hit rock-bottom.

After several minutes, she finally was capable of words. "Why?" she whispered through gasps, her tears finally beginning to fade. "What did I _do _to deserve this? What did any of us _do?_"

He pulled her closer as her tears began to subside. "Nothing," he said gently. "You did nothing to deserve this. But there are sick people out there, Lily. All they want is to kill, and they'll do anything to get their fix of death. Hate is their drug, and they want to destroy everything they don't agree with. That's why we're fighting them. I swear, Lily, we're going to stop them." _And I will do my best to personally torture and kill whoever hurt you like this, _he thought grimly.

"I hate them," she said bitterly, voice muffled by his shoulder. "I _fucking_ _hate _them."

James smiled wanly. "We all do."

"I can't even have a bloody _funeral _for my parents," she muttered, lifting her head off of him at last. Her eyes were red and puffy. "I can't even have that. No last moments with them. No chance to see them again. Nothing. I just can't have _anything._"

James said nothing as Lily dried her eyes on her shirt. Her gaze was empty as she stared across the room at a photograph that still hung in its frame on the wall, unscathed. It was a picture from ten years ago. Lily was seven and Petunia was nine, and they were grinning broadly at the camera with their smiling parents standing behind them. The photo was in color, though it was starting to fade slightly from the sunlight that had beat down on it from years of hanging by a window. Her father's hair was a slightly more vibrant shade of red back then, but his blue eyes still twinkled with their constant laughter. Her mother was as proper as ever, her rosy cheeks still full and beautiful.

Lily dried her eyes and stood up abruptly, walking towards the photograph. She quietly removed it from its frame as James watched her intently from the other side of the room. She was aware of his eyes on her, but she didn't care. She hung the empty picture frame back on the wall and folded up the picture, slipping it into her pocket, and walked towards the door.

"Where are you going?"

Lily kept her eyes fixed on the door, ashamed of her earlier tears. "I want to see my room."

"Do you…do you want me to come with you?" James was still sitting on the carpeted floor and was looking up at her, slightly worried.

"If you want." She was already walking out the door, leaving him behind.

With a sigh, James stood and followed her. She was up and down. Fire and ice. One minute, she was sobbing her eyes out. The next, she had pulled her hardened exterior back on and all traces of weakness were gone once more.

He followed her down the short hallway to a closed door at the top of the stairs they had come up minutes before. He caught up to her as she pushed open the door and walked in, flipping on the light switch.

Little had changed since Lily left the afternoon before, except it was obvious that someone had gone through her belongings. Her still-packed trunk from Hogwarts was opened on the floor with the previously-folded clothes now messy in disarray. A few of the drawers on her dresser were slightly ajar, and her window was unlatched, though she distinctly recalled closing it tightly in yesterday afternoon's rain. Her closet door was open, and some of her books were lying on the floor.

But for the most part, everything was still the same.

Lily walked to her bed, positioned next to her window, and sat down on it, cross-legged. James watched her, still standing in the doorway, hazel eyes taking in the light green walls and the cheap, simple furniture.

"Well," Lily said wryly, spreading her arms. "Welcome to my room."

James entered cautiously. Lily rolled her eyes. "I promise I don't have landmines planted under the floor, Potter," she said sarcastically. "Don't be scared."

He sat down on her desk chair and looked around. "Nice decorations," he gestured at the moving photos of Lily and Alice that covered the walls, along with posters of Muggle music groups. "You're a Beatles fan?"

She grinned for the first time. "I love them. Paul McCartney's my favorite. I know every word to every song they ever did." She cocked an eyebrow inquisitively. "I didn't know you were familiar with Muggle music."

"I'm not," he smirked, pushing his wire-rimmed glasses back up his nose. "But I do know _some _things about stuff outside the Wizarding World." He looked down at Lily's desk and picked up a faded-looking photograph of two girls at the beach. The figures in it were not moving, so it must have been a Muggle picture. A much-younger Lily was in it, beaming widely, with her arm slung around a girl James had never seen in his life. She looked slightly older than Lily and had stringy, pale hair and a strained expression about her, though she was smiling as well. Neither girl could have been older than fifteen in the photo. "Who is this?" he asked, holding it out to Lily.

She gazed at it, looking distant. "That's my sister, Petunia," she responded after a moment, smiling faintly. "We were in Brighton on vacation, the summer after my second year."

_So _that's _her sister,_ James thought. He recalled Lily mentioning her the night before in the Leaky Cauldron. "I thought you two…uh, didn't get along."

Lily laughed ruefully. "We don't. Not now, anyway. She was my best friend when we were kids, but she started to like me less and less as we grew up, mainly because I'm a witch and she isn't. It started as jealousy, but now I think she just hates me. We were still getting along okay when we took that picture. Now, I can't say a word to her without getting in some kind of argument." Her expression clouded over. "I don't know where she is or what happened to her. I need to find her. I don't know if she knows about…this."

"We'll find her," James said automatically.

She shrugged. "Even if Pet's alive, she won't want to talk to me, except maybe to yell at me. She knew Se—Snape, you know. He was the one that told me about magic. She hated him, especially when me and him got to be better friends. I think she thought that Snape was pulling me away from her."

He had no idea what to say. He never had any idea what Lily's childhood had been like. He only knew the smart girl who spoke fluent sarcasm and wasn't afraid of standing up to anyone. He only knew the Hogwarts Lily.

Mercifully, she continued, and he did not have to come up with a response. "We used to sit on the roof together, me and Sev," she said softly. "We'd watch the clouds and talk about what crazy things we would do together over the summer. He was my best friend, and I hated you for what you did to him."

James winced. He had bullied Snape since their first day of Hogwarts, six years ago. "I'm sorry for that. You know I am."

"You're _sorry?_ Well, you certainly never _apologized_ to him." Her tone had the slightest hint of acid.

"He's friends with the Death Eaters now, Evans," he snapped, his turbulent emotions rising up and breaking the surface. "If he weren't, I would sure as hell go find him right now and tell him I'm bloody _sorry_, but I won't. Not with what he turned into. You have to understand that now, things are different. He's part of the damn group that did this to you, your family, and your _life. _I have nothing to apologize for anymore."

"Oh, so you _still _won't treat him like a living, breathing human with actual emotions, Potter?" Lily looked furious. "Of course. It's easier for you that way, isn't it? It's _much_ easier to treat people like crap when you don't think about how they must bloody _feel._"

"What the hell is wrong with you, Evans?" James demanded. "You're actually sticking up for that arse, after all of this? He's one of them! The ones that did this in the first place! If he cared about you _at all, _he would have stopped this from happening. Do you honestly think he didn't _know_ about it? This was probably his damn idea!"

He immediately realized that he crossed the line. The hurt on Lily's porcelain face was undeniable: tears welled up in her eyes instantly and she looked like she had just been punched.

"I didn't mean it," he said automatically. "Evans, I'm sorry—"

"Go to hell," she spat, standing up and making a move towards the door. The tears threatened to flow from her eyes yet again, but she forced them back as James blocked her path. "Get out of my way."

He didn't move an inch. "Forget I said it, Evans. I'm sorry."

"_Move._" Her voice was pure anger.

"No," James said resolutely. "Just listen to me, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that—"

But before he could finish his sentence, Lily had stormed back across the room towards her window. She swung it open and, without a backwards glance, jumped and disappeared into the dark. Just like that, she was gone.

It took James a moment to process what had happened. After a moment, he realized what she had just done.

"Evans!" he shouted, running from the door to the window. He leaned out into the nighttime, but couldn't see a thing through the black. "Evans, where are you?" He drew a deep breath. "LILY!"

No answer.

"_Damn _it," he muttered, squinting at the dark and praying to catch sight of the redhead. "Merlin, what the _hell…_"

James ran out of the room and down the stairs, out of the house and into the front garden. The streetlamps darkly illuminated the road and the sidewalk, but there was still no one to be seen. Fingers crossed that he wouldn't wake the neighbors, he shouted through the silence, "Lily!"

Still nothing.

He glanced around, checking to make sure no sleepless Muggles were roaming the streets and slipping out his wand. "_Lumos,_" he hissed.

The wandtip burst into light and he held it out into the dark. James slowly walked around the side of the house, keeping an eye out for any passersby.

Lily had just _jumped out the window. _He wasn't sure if she was brave or completely mad. Hell, maybe both. She could have killed herself, especially if she hit the ground. He cringed at the thought and quickly headed around the back of her house, dreading the admittedly-unlikely possibility of seeing her lying on the ground, wounded or dead. James closed his eyes as he rounded the corner to the back of her house, and uttered a quiet prayer. He took a deep breath and opened them. Nothing.

He strode down the path that wended its way through her well-kept garden, past the irises and nasturtiums in the height of their bloom. His worry faded to annoyance. Lily was hiding from him.

"Evans!" he called again. "Where are you?"

The only response was the sound of a lonely owl somewhere in the trees behind the remains of Lily's house. A couple hoots vibrated through the air and only fueled James's frustration.

"God _damn _it, Evans!" he yelled angrily, throwing his hands up in his impatience and hurling his wand to the ground. The light flickered out on impact. "I'M SORRY!"

"Can you stop yelling?" a feminine voice floated down coolly from somewhere above him. "I heard you the first four times."

James whirled around, frantically turning in all directions for the source of the voice before looking up. There she was, perched on the edge of the roof, legs dangling off the side as she gazed down at him with an expression of raw distaste in her emerald eyes. He was at a loss for words and simply stared at her.

"What the bloody hell are you doing up there?" he asked finally, bending down to pick up his rather-abused wand.

"Oh, I was enjoying the view," Lily said nonchalantly, though her face still proved her anger. "It was really quite amusing, watching you run about, shouting my name and half-hearted apologies to high heaven. I only stopped you because I thought the neighbors would call the police if they heard you, dashing around and shouting like a psychopath."

Before she knew it, James had Disapparated from his position in her garden and reappeared standing next to her, fury evident on his countenance. His hazel eyes were narrowed and he leant down, his nose inches from hers. All Lily did was raise a single, defined eyebrow as she turned away her face away from him.

"You're a prick, Potter."

"I _said _that I'm _sorry,_" James said emphatically, glaring at the side of her head. "What more do you want me to say?"

She laughed emptily. "Well, I'd like you to say it and mean it."

"But I _do _mean it," he hissed, his eyes dangerous. "You've got your head in the bloody _clouds, _Evans. I _care _about you and you don't realize it. I don't know what else I'm supposed to do with you."

Lily paused and looked at him. She could tell that despite his anger, he was focused on her, and her alone. "How the hell am I supposed to believe you? This is the third time we've fought since yesterday, and the second time in about _three damn hours._" _And _oh, _what I would give for some bloody sleep…_

"If I didn't _care _about you, I wouldn't be here with you right now. I wouldn't have followed you down that bridge, and I wouldn't have begged you to let me come back here. Nothing I say is meant to hurt you, Evans. And somewhere in that crazy head of yours that I have spent the last six years of my life trying _understand,_ you know I'm telling the truth." His eyes were piercing, and his words were like spears, intense and sharp. "I'm _sorry, _Lily. I mean it."

With those final words, she believed him.

"I…I accept your apology," Lily breathed, pulling her gaze away from his. She couldn't think of a single word to say beyond these, but she didn't have to as James knelt down next to her and gently cupped her chin, turning her face towards his.

She saw it coming. In the moments afterwards, she kept telling herself, in her mind, that the signs were all there, and that, in her subconscious, she had been expecting it. But no thoughts could change what happened. She recognized the fleeting seconds that led up to it. They were always the same. This time, though, the end result was like nothing she had ever experienced before.

James kissed her.

The seconds had seemed to stop. She saw him leaning towards her, and she let it happen. It was natural. It was something beautiful and absolutely perfect, the moment his lips met hers.

Romance novels always spoke of a spark. Perfect kisses, they said, were supposed to feel like fireworks. There was supposed to be an explosion. Some sort of electrical current that would course through each lover's body. Lily always assumed that it was just nonsense, just a ton of words written to appeal to middle-aged housewives in unhappy marriages.

It was only when James kissed her that she felt the fire manifest itself in her heart, her mind, and every cell of her body.

James's lips touched hers and her eyes slipped shut, his slightly rough hands, lightly touching her face. She kissed him back, and longed for the moment to last forever.

But it didn't. It couldn't; it _wouldn't _last forever, and all too soon, it ended.

Her eyes were still closed as she heard him murmur to her, over the whispering of the wind, "I'm glad you forgive me."

Lily's lids drifted back open as James lay back on the roof, staring up at the stars overhead.

She did not speak, trying to process what just occurred in the prior moments. The kiss could not have lasted more than three seconds, but the sensation still lingered on her mouth. Did he feel it, too? Why had he even done it? The silence between them was peaceful, but she needed an answer…

"What was that for?" she asked him softly.

James did not answer her immediately, instead sighing quietly. After a second, he said, "It felt right. I don't really know why. I just…had to do it."

Lily lay down next to him on the slanted roof, ignoring the slight digs from the shingles into her back. The perfect moment was long over. "I don't know what's going on anymore," she mumbled, her increasingly-tired eyes turned to the sky. "The past two days have been awful. I'm just so damn confused."

He exhaled quietly and closed his eyes behind his glasses. "I'm sorry. I know I didn't help you sort anything out any more than you had already. You can pretend it didn't happen, if that makes it easier."

"I can't do that," she replied almost sharply.

James sat up slightly and looked at her. "And why is that?" he asked calmly, though a thrill ran through his veins.

"I don't want to pretend it didn't happen," Lily said lowly. She couldn't look him in the eyes, and instead kept her gaze focused on the still-dark sky, slowly lightening as dawn approached. "It felt right to me. I…I like being with you now. Even if we have fought so much in the past few hours," she added the last part wryly. "I don't really know what it is I want, but I know what I don't want. I don't want to forget about this."

James leaned back against the roof, lying back down and running a hand through his hair. "You need time, Lily," he said gently. "You have enough going on right now. You have to make things right with your sister, and you have the whole summer ahead of you. _We've _got the whole summer to figure out what we can do. You've got enough to handle, and you don't need me complicating it." He smiled darkly at the stars.

Some part of Lily had half-expected James to ask her out, yet he hadn't. She couldn't help but be slightly disappointed. But she was exhausted, confused, and not in her right mind. It was only now, as she tried to reason out her thoughts, that she realized how much she longed for rest. Her fatigue from the past few days was catching up to her, and all she wanted to do was fall asleep. She hadn't the slightest idea what time it was; it had to be at least 3 AM by then. She would think on this in the morning…

"Can we discuss this again, sometime?" she asked, her lids closing slowly, eyes itching for sleep. Her voice was drifting away. "I don't give a damn about my confusion or what I need to fix, James…I don't need any…time…" The shingled roof was far from comfortable, but at this point, she would be able to fall asleep on a bed of rose thorns if she had to.

James smiled wanly. "But you do, Lily," he said gently. "You do." Lily was already asleep by the time he finished, and her long eyelashes had long since fluttered shut.

A tiny bit of him prayed that she would forget that he had kissed her. What had come over him, he did not know. Only time would tell whether or not he would regret it and what would become of them, but for the time being, he would enjoy it. He had kissed Lily Evans.

James glanced up at the sky, slowly beginning to glow with morning light about the edges of the horizon, and checked his watch. The hands pointed to read 3:45 AM. Sirius likely came up with a cover story to feed to his mother about why he wasn't home, but his best friend would probably be worried about him by now. He had been gone for hours.

_Maybe I'll get hold of Sirius on our mirrors, _he contemplated, stretching out on the rooftop. He routinely turned to look at the sleeping girl beside him, sardonically hoping that she wouldn't roll off the slanted roof in her sleep. She looked nearly vulnerable: flower-like. Like one of the delicate ones in his mother's garden. A peony, maybe, or a violet.

_Or, of course, a lily…_

As much as James himself longed to rest, he knew he must not sleep. Someone needed to protect Lily, and he'd be damned if anything happened to her on his watch.

James sighed inaudibly and watched the sky glow to a dark blue, listening to the sounds of the night warming into dawn for several minutes, until he heard a noise that most definitely did not belong in the typical music of the darkness.

Footsteps.

And they were coming from beneath him, in the garden below.

James leapt off his back into a crouch in one smooth, immeasurably fast move. He drew his wand out of his pocket and peered over the side of the rooftop. A tall, shadowy, masculine figure in a cloak was treading, very slowly, down the garden path that James had walked not so long before, searching for Lily.

He reached over and tapped Lily on the shoulder lightly, and she awoke with a gasp.

"What-?"

James put a hand over her mouth and pointed downwards with his wand. Lily's eyes widened in sudden realization, and all traces of her sleep were gone.

He removed his hand and she moved to mimic his stance, crouched on the edge of the rooftop, wand drawn. He peered again over the side and saw that the lone hooded figure had stopped moving. Whoever it was must have heard Lily's voice, and James's heart sank. They had to get out. Now.

"We're going to Disapparate," James mouthed silently. He would take her back to his house, he decided, and he would bring her back to the Prewett house in the morning. Lily nodded and took James's arm, but as she stood up, her left foot slipped off the edge of the roof.

She muffled her own scream as James jumped up and caught her before she could fall, but it was too late. The man in the garden looked up, and though James could not see his face, he knew he was staring straight into the stranger's eyes. A bizarre rush came over him, as he pulled Lily to safety, with his eyes still on the other man, but before he could figure out what the sensation was about, the man threw back his hood and James saw who it was.

Golden eyes burning like wildfires against his fair skin, Fabian Prewett shouted from below them, "What the _bloody hell _is going on?"

* * *

><p><em>AN: I haven't been much in writing lately, but I decided that, despite my writer's block, I owe you guys an update (it's been over a month!) So please review, dearies. I'll be gone to South Carolina for about a week starting tomorrow, so this is my present to you all before I leave. Also, I have another story up, Tender Fire. Check it out!_

_Also, I see that Fanfiction has made it much easier to leave a review now. All you have to do is type in that lovely box at the bottom of the page now! So why don't you test it out and review this chapter? You know, just to see how it works and all._

_Thanks for reading!_

_Love,  
>The Silent Rain<em>


	7. No Light

Chapter Seven: No Light

_I'm gonna fight 'em off,  
>A seven nation army couldn't hold me back.<br>They're gonna rip it off, taking their time right behind my back.  
>And I'm talking to myself at night because I can't forget,<br>Back and forth through my mind behind a cigarette._

_And the message coming from my eyes, it says, "leave it alone."_

_-The White Stripes_

* * *

><p>Lily stared down at Fabian, her mouth hanging open slightly in shock at the sight of the boy with reddish-gold hair standing in her garden, gazing up at the pair with shock and anger in his eyes. His expression was like pure poison as it burned at her and James standing on above him, with the latter's arms still around her from pulling her back onto the safety of the rooftop after she slipped. She couldn't think of a single thing to say to him.<p>

"What are you doing here, Prewett?" James demanded, his voice tense.

Fabian's gaze was fixed on James, hatred emblazoned on his face. "You know, Potter," he bit out, pulling his wand out of his cloak pocket and pointing it at James, "I knew you were always an arse, but bringing Lily back here is crossing the line."

"And I always knew you were a mindless wanker, Prewett," James glared, letting go of Lily and aiming his wand at Fabian in return. But it was futile. With a quick jet of light, James's wand soared out of his hand into Fabian's, whose anger looked beyond all description. In a split second, he was gone from the garden and with a furious _crack, _he reappeared on the rooftop in front of James and Lily.

"I might be a 'mindless wanker,'" he spat, slipping James's wand into his pocket. "But you're the prick that will have to answer to Dumbledore about this."

"James didn't do any—" Lily began, but James immediately cut her off.

"What the _hell _do I have to answer for?" he retorted. "I'm here to _protect _her, Prewett, which _you've_ done a damn awful job of so far. I will ask you _again, _what are you doing here?"

"I'm here because Molly went to check on Lily and found her missing from her bed, with bloody _ropes _dangling out of her window," Fabian snapped. "She was hysterical and ran through the house screaming bloody murder. Gideon had to force-feed her Calming Draught while I went out to look for her. And now I've found her at her house with _you, _Potter, even after the orders that Dumbledore gave to _stay away _until he can send Moody out to watch the place." His eyes gleamed. "I wonder what the Order of the Phoenix is going to have to say about _this._"

"I made him come here with me!" Lily said loudly, butting into the increasingly-heated conversation between the two boys. "I snuck out on my own, Fabian!"

Fabian paid her absolutely no attention, and it was as if she hadn't spoken. "So why'd you bring her here, _James_?" he asked, the evenness in his voice thinly masking his anger. "Looking to manipulate her like all the other girls you tossed away?"

James took a step towards him on the rooftop so that his nose was inches from the other boy's. Even though he didn't have his wand, Lily could tell that James was probably mere seconds from punching Fabian in the face.

"He's not doing _ANYTHING!" _Lily's voice rose to a shout, desperate to get their attention before they got violent. "I snuck out on my _own _and ran into James in the street!"

Neither boy would pay her any mind, though, because now they were getting personal.

"_Me, _manipulate her?" James growled. "I haven't forgotten _your_ track record, _Fabian_, and neither has that Hufflepuff girl you knocked up three years ago."

"She had a miscarriage," Fabian replied coolly, twirling James's wand between the long, elegant fingers of his left hand. "And I was at least dating her at the time. You, on the other hand, made Angela Kelly cry so much that she quit the Gryffindor Quidditch team just to get away from you."

"Oh yeah, and you made her feel better by luring her into the Astronomy Tower with you and taking her virginity, you _asshole._"

"Really?" Fabian looked blackly amused. "That's funny. She told me she lost it to you two days before."

"You're still a womanizer, Prewett," James jabbed Fabian in the chest furiously, stepping even closer to him as his voice rose to a shout. "I know you're just so bloody _amazing _at always making yourself look like a hero, but really, Flobberworms make better gentlemen than you."

Fabian's volume matched James's. "You're the one who forced Lily back here so you could use her damn _sadness _as a way to get into her bloody _pants! _This isn't a fucking competition to see who makes the better gentleman, Potter, because if it was—"

"_WILL YOU BOTH SHUT UP?!"_ Lily roared over the pair.

They each stopped and looked at her, surprised by her outburst.

"You're both talking about me like I'm not here," she snapped, her eyes flashing between them. "And neither of you are letting me talk. Instead you're just going back and forth like babies about nonsense from _years _ago! You're both awful!"

"How am I awful?" Fabian demanded. "I'm trying to help you! I came here to fucking _save _you when I realized you weren't home!"

She snorted. "You call this _helping _me?! What the _hell _do you think you're _helping _me with? I don't need any damn _saving, _like some damsel-in-distress—"

"Yeah, Prewett," James jumped back in. "You heard her. She doesn't need your help."

"James, just stop—" Lily began, exasperated.

"No, he's not going to stop, Lily," Fabian's face twisted into a grim smirk once more. "Because he thinks he's a better _man _than I am. Being a true man seems to involve hurting girls and treating them like crap and manipulating them." He smiled darkly at James. "Go home, Potter. She's not your responsibility."

"Yes she is! I came with her here to protect her, so she damn well is my responsibility!"

Lily could see clearly that now this was an argument that she would never be able to successfully mediate. There was a dislike between the two boys that ran deeper than what met the eye. There was something more to their hatred than the fact that she was on a rooftop with James in the dead of night.

"I said to go home, Potter," Fabian growled, pointing his wand at James. "If I have to, I will _make you._"

"You'd curse me while I don't have a wand?" James laughed bitterly. "Either give me back my wand so we can duel, or come hit me." He spread out his arms. "Come on, Prewett. Hit me."

Wordlessly, Fabian stuck his own wand into the back pocket of his jeans and, without breaking his concentrated gaze on James, tossed the other boy's wand off the edge of the roof into the flower garden below. He took a step towards James, drawing his fist back.

Lily jumped in between them. "Just _stop!_" she shouted. "Stop! This is ridiculous! You can't start bloody fighting on my roof, unless one of you wants to end up dead!"

"If anyone's going to die tonight, it's not going to be me," snarled James, trying to push Lily out of the way.

"No!" she yelled. "No one is going to fucking _die! _Just go get your damn wand out of my garden and _go home,_ James!"

He froze and looked at her, his gaze unfathomable. "You really want me to?" His voice was velvet, though it still betrayed next to no emotion.

"Yes," her voice lost its edge and bordered on shakiness at his change in demeanor, and she almost forgot Fabian's presence. "Just go home, I can handle it."

"You mean it?" he asked softly.

"Yes, I do," she fought to keep her voice steady as his hazel eyes melted through her. "Just don't worry about me. Go."

All James did was nod, and he stepped to the edge of the roof and reached over. He grabbed the drainpipe that stretched down the side of the house and slid down it lightly, landing on the ground with a soft thud and picking his wand up out of her hydrangea bushes. He looked up once more at Lily, his eyes never once turning to Fabian, and smiled slightly at her. Within a moment, he had turned and disappeared.

When he was gone, Lily faced Fabian, who stood beside her with a stoical expression. "What the hell is wrong with you?!" she shrieked, her anger boiling over. "You crazy asshole, you won't listen to a single bloody word I say and just shout over me, you—you—" she was beyond words at this point and instead just put her hands on his chest and tried to shove him backwards. He didn't budge an inch and just stared into her eyes, betraying no emotion. This only served to infuriate her more, as she let out a wordless, livid cry of fury and turned around, stalking away from him to the other side of the roof.

Lily heard him coming up behind her, but she refused to look back.

"Calm down," he said coolly, placing a hand on her shoulder. "You're way too upset."

"Way too upset?" she demanded incredulously, her plan to ignore him failing immediately. "I'm _way too upset?_ Oh yeah, because I have _absolutely no reason _to be angry, right, Fabian? You can just come over here and start shouting at James and me—"

I wasn't shouting at _you,_" Fabian snapped. "If you were paying any attention, you would have noticed that."

"Well, you might as well have been!" she shouted, facing him. "You were yelling at James like he made me come here, and if you had closed your damn mouth just for _one minute, _you would have heard me say that I _made him come here!_"

"I heard you," Fabian said coldly. "But that doesn't change the fact that, as a member of the Order, he should have brought you home."

"_This _is my home, not your stupid mansion in London," Lily shot back. "I didn't make him come with me. He was coming along to keep me safe."

"If he _really _wanted to keep you safe, he wouldn't have let you come here!" Fabian was growing increasingly frustrated. "He would have brought you back to me—to us," he corrected himself quickly, but a flash of some emotion glimmered across his face for a scant moment. "To Gideon and Molly and me."

Lily did not fail to notice his brief change in emotion, and a hard, joyless smile twisted her features. "I think I know what it is, Prewett," she said slowly. "You're just jealous of James."

Fabian twitched slightly. "I'm not bloody _jealous _of him, Lily," he hissed dangerously. "But you should have brought me with you instead. I'm older than he is, I'm better than he is, and I sure as hell care more about you than he does."

"So one minute you're saying that bringing me here was some god-awful, terrible idea, and the next you're telling me that I should have taken you along instead of James?" Lily snorted. "That definitely sounds like jealousy to me."

"I'm older than he is, Lily. I've got more authority in the Order than he does, and they trust me more."

"They trust _you?_" Lily demanded. "Just because you're _one _year older than us doesn't mean that you're smarter or bloody _wiser _than the rest of us. If you're so good and intelligent and _trustworthy, _then why the hell are you here right now?"

His eyes narrowed. "I'm not afraid to break the rules when I have to."

Lily threw up her hands. "You're making absolutely _no _fucking sense, Fabian. So only _you _are allowed to break rules? None of the rest of us can? You're so bloody high-and-mighty and _arrogant._"

"Oh, _I'm _the arrogant one? Last I checked, you thought _Potter _was an arrogant, conceited jackarse, but now all of a sudden you two are all lovey-dovey!"

"Why the hell do you care? All this proves is that you really _are_ a jealous, reckless idiot!"

Fabian didn't respond. Instead, he turned his head towards the trees lining the edge of her garden in the distance. The sky was lightening, but it was still not quite sunrise. He stared intently out into the forest, and his facial features hardened suddenly.

"Fabian?" Lily's angry tone faltered for a second. "What the hell are you doing?"

His head snapped back around and he faced her, his expression contorted in tension. "Get inside the house, Lily."

"Why—"

"_Now,_" he hissed, drawing his wand from his back pocket and crouching. "There's someone out there. Just go. Hurry."

Lily gasped and her pulse quickened. There was only one thing that could possibly make Fabian this nervous, and that would be Death Eaters. Perhaps her and James's fear from earlier would be realized now, here with Fabian Prewett.

She crouched down next to Fabian and, without a second thought, obeyed his order and jumped so she hung off the edge of her roof, her hands clutching it. Like an acrobat, she swung into her still open bedroom window and backed up into a corner, without even bothering to close the window properly. She couldn't handle this. Not now. Not again. Any bravery she had had earlier, when she was safe with James, was completely gone. She couldn't handle more death. She couldn't face this pain again.

_Please don't let it be, _she prayed. _Please let it be nothing. Absolutely nothing._

She almost cried out as a figure jumped in through the window and landed lightly on the floor beneath the open portal.

"Be quiet," Fabian whispered, closing the window and latching it firmly. He hurried to where Lily stood, and grabbed her hand. "Listen, Lily, no matter what, just follow to what I say. I know you're angry with me, but please, just trust me." He glanced around the room quickly, and his eyes lit upon his bed. "Get under the bed."

She nodded and scampered underneath, her room illuminated now by the beginnings of dawn in the sky. It would have been beautiful if she weren't so terrified. "But what about you?" Lily whispered, poking her head out.

"Don't worry about me," he replied, eyes fixed on the door. "I only saw one hood, so I think he's alone. I don't think he knows we're here. I'll protect you."

As Lily silently retreated fully under the bed and huddled on the dusty floor, Fabian's words resounded in her head. _I'll protect you…_

There were footsteps in the lower floor of the house. Lily could hear them echoing throughout the edifice as they sent chills coursing through her body, stinging her every nerve like jolts of electricity touched by fire. She heard Fabian exhale softly. "It'll be okay, Lily," he breathed, though he could not see her. "I promise, it'll be okay."

The footsteps were coming up the stairway now. The even-paced thuds of the unidentified footfalls grew nearer and nearer as the person drew closer to the second floor. Lily's heart pounded as the sound came to the exact outside of her room door, and her pulse all but stopped when the noisy steps were silenced. Directly on the other side of her door. She whimpered silently, and wrapped her fingers tightly around her wand in her pocket, closing her eyes tightly.

"_Bombarda!_" Fabian shouted. There was a loud crashing sound and the room was filled with light, and the door splintered into bits.

A ringing laugh echoed around the room as the noise subsided, but it was the cackle of a woman. Lily opened her eyes and from under the bed, she could see an apparently-unscathed figure stepping into the room, clad in black robes.

"Aw, look, it's one of the little Prewett twins," the woman giggled demonically. "Did you think you could hurt me, little boy?"

"I could if I wanted to, Black," Fabian said in a mock-conversational tone. "But I'd like to ask you a few quick questions, starting with, _why the hell are you here?_"

Lily twitched involuntarily under the bed at the evil woman's last name. Black. If what she thought was right, the woman underneath that Death Eater mask was Bellatrix Black, Sirius's cousin. The Black family, she knew, was full of Pureblood supremacists. She had heard rumors that Bellatrix had joined the ranks of the Death Eaters, but Sirius had never said a single word about it; he did not seem particularly fond of his haughty, largely-Slytherin clan.

She laughed again; it was a horrifying, blackly humorous sound. "I'm Lestrange now, baby-Fabby," she sing-songed. "And I'd like to find silly little Lily. I know you're hiding her, little boy."

"You have to tell me why you need her," Fabian snapped. All Lily could see from her spot under the bed was Fabian and Bellatrix's feet, and she watched as Fabian stepped closer to the Death Eater, fearless as a lion.

"Some people just need to die," Bellatrix's voice was filled with twisted ecstasy. "And that girl is one of them. The boys couldn't finish the job themselves, so I'm here to clean up their mess."

"Is anyone else coming?" Fabian demanded harshly.

"Now, little Prewett, why would I ever tell you that?" Bellatrix giggled. "I'm following the Dark Lord's orders, and the rest of his servants are as well."

"Oh, you call yourselves his _servants_?" Fabian snorted humorlessly. "More like _slaves, _if you ask me, with the way you follow his every command and kiss his feet, doing that arsehole's dirty work—"

"You piece of filth," the laughter disappeared from Bellatrix's tone. "You think you can besmirch his dignity, cursing him. You're a blood traitor, like the rest of your family, and the Dark Lord will give me great honors for killing you and your brother and your sister, Prewett. Did you ever wonder which of us it was that killed your parents? The Dark Lord gave me many rewards for eliminating them, little boy." She cackled. "They never taught you any respect, you rotten child, so I will instead. _Crucio!_"

With the reflexes of the Chaser he used to be on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, Fabian dodged the spell and rolled to the ground, coming to land in front of the bed, deliberately blocking the opening to under the bed. The window behind them shattered as the spell missed him and exploded the glass instead. "You can do better than that, Bella," he said tauntingly. "My parents taught me to respect other human beings, so _you _don't count, you crazy bitch."

Lily slipped her wand out of her pocket fully as Fabian stood up to face Bellatrix once more. She braced herself and summoned up all of her bravery.

"Well, getting feisty, aren't we, Prewett?" she said disdainfully, haughtiness entering her tone too to join her mockery. "If you like playing with fire so much, I'll just smoke out little Miss Evans, and you can watch your little girlfriend burn to death." She raised her wand and cried, "Incendio!"

What remained of the doorway burst into flames. The smoke immediately became heavily cloying and suffocating, and it was all Lily could do not to cough on the sour air. Her wand fixed on the bit of Bellatrix's feet that she could see, she took a deep breath, her mouth and nose shielded by her arm, and rolled out from under the bed. Bellatrix's eyes turned to her, and her smirk widened. But before she could get a single word out, Lily screamed, "_STUPEFY!_"

The force of Lily's jinx not only Stunned Bellatrix, but also sent her falling back several feet as she collapsed to the ground. Fabian looked at her, amazed, before grabbing her arm. "That was ridiculously stupid of you, Lily," he said. "She would have killed you if you weren't quick enough—"

"Oh, because you wouldn't have done the same bloody thing," Lily muttered. She knew that Fabian didn't really mean it; if anything, in his heart, he was proud of her, though she was fully aware of the fact that he would never show it.

"That's just a technicality," Fabian deadpanned.

The flames were growing larger as they drew closer and closer to them now. "_Aguamenti!_" Lily shouted. But her spell was not strong enough to put out the encroaching fire. "_AGUAMENTI! AGUAMENTI!_" It was futile. What remained of the doorway was now completely gone as the fire spread. There was no leaving the room.

His hand wrapping itself in hers, Fabian said, "We're going to Disapparate back to my house, okay? Just hang on to me." Lily braced herself as Fabian made the turn to Disapparate, but nothing happened.

"God _DAMN IT!_" Fabian roared in anger. Lily cringed a bit. "That fucking bitch must have put an Anti-Disapparition Jinx on the place!" He quickly glanced around the room, taking in the bed, the window, the growing flames, and Bellatrix, who was beginning to stir on the ground. "We have to go out the window."

"We have to _what?!_"

"We have no other options," Fabian said grimly. "It's that or we burn to death, Lily."

With Bellatrix coming to on the ground, Lily realized that Fabian was right; they had no choice. She took in the sight of her room one last time, and before Fabian could stop her, she hurried to her desk and picked up the picture of Petunia and her in Brighton that James had been looking at just hours before. She smiled sadly and stuck it in her pocket next to the photograph of her family that she had slipped in there earlier in the night. "Let's go."

Fabian stepped onto the window ledge and stood there, where the now blown-out glass used to be. The way he stood reminded Lily exactly of his stance on the edge of the banister in his house when he picked a diamond off of his chandelier for her: like an angel, with his golden-red hair blowing around him in the breeze coming in from what remained of the window. "Get on my back."

"Get on your—?!"

"Just do it, Evans."

Grudgingly, Lily hopped onto his back, piggy-back style. "We're going to jump," he said calmly. "In three…two…one."

They flew off the ledge and for a few moments, they were absolutely weightless in the cool early-morning air. The two of the hit the ground and, testament to his magical ability, Fabian landed perfectly in a crouch on the ground, like a tiger leaping across a river. He straightened up, Lily still hanging onto him for dear life, and tried to Disapparate again, but to no avail. "Damn it, she must have jinxed this whole fucking area," he swore, and glanced up at the sky. "Holy shit, holy _shit, _Lily we have to run."

"What is it?" she asked, and peered up at the sky. What she saw tied her stomach into knots and for a moment, she thought she was going to be sick. Two hooded, masked figures, unmistakably Death Eaters, were flying towards them on brooms at a rapid pace. "Oh God. Oh God, no." She slid off of Fabian's back and grabbed his hand. "Come on. We have to go to the woods."

The two took off at a sprint through her garden towards the trees, still many meters away from them. The Death Eaters were getting closer and closer, and there was no way they would be able to outrun people on brooms. The grass beneath their feet was soft and springy, and all Lily could do was keep her eyes fixed on the forest ahead of her. They were almost there. It was possible that the Death Eaters hadn't seen them…

Fabian and Lily reached the forest at last, and still hand in hand, Fabian gasped, "We should be safe." As he started the Disapparition, there was a wordless shout from the Death Eaters. But before anything could be done, Fabian and Lily began spiraling far away from the Manchester suburb, heading for London. The last thing Lily saw before she squeezed her eyes closed was her childhood home in its last minutes, the entire building ablaze.

In a moment's time, they stopped falling and landed on the marble doorstep of Fabian's Belgravia home. Fumbling for a key in his pocket, he muttered countless swear words under his breath. At last producing from his pocket an unusually ornate key, he jammed it into the front door and pushed it open.

Immediately, a house elf squeaked and sent a hex soaring at them. Fabian cursed (again) and ducked, pulling Lily down with him. "It's _me,_ Pippy," he grumbled irately. "You know, Fabian? Your master? You don't need to try to bloody kill me. I've already had that happen twice before this tonight."

"Pippy is most sorry!" the elf squeaked apologetically. "She didn't mean to try to hurt Master Fabian, Pippy swears!"

"It's fine, Pip," Fabian rolled his eyes. "I just had one of the worst nights of my life."

"You found her?" Gideon came striding, business-like, into the foyer. "Thank Merlin. Where was she?"

"At her house," Fabian winced. "Which happens to be on fire as we speak. Is Molly okay?"

"On _fire-?"_

"I'll explain later." Fabian made a face. "Just tell me, how's Molly doing?"

"She's sleeping. It took four Calming Draughts to get her down, and Arthur and I had to carry her back to their room. It was terrible," Gideon shuddered. He looked at Lily. "Are you okay, Lily?"

"I'm…I'm great," she said faintly. Now as the sky glowed pink and the sun rose, the events of the night finally began to catch up with her. She felt a bit like she was going to collapse. "Never been better."

"Oh, _that _sounded sincere," Fabian muttered. His hand was still wrapped in hers. "Come on, you're going to bed." He turned to Gideon. "I'll explain everything later." Without waiting for a response, he pulled Lily towards the rosewood stairs in the center of the hallway and stopped at the base. "Do you think you can make it up?"

"Of course I can make it up," she huffed. "I'm not a baby. I can do it." Turning her back on Fabian, she began marching up the stairs. She only made it up about ten steps before her knees began to shake from her fatigue and stress, and she had to stop. She grabbed the railing for support and took a deep breath.

"Like hell you can," Fabian came up behind her and laid a hand on her shoulder. "Come on, I'll carry you."

"No you won't—PUT ME DOWN!"

Fabian had already lifted her up, bridal style, and was carrying her up the stairs effortlessly. "Sorry, Lily," he mumbled. "It didn't look like you were going to make it—OW! Don't hit me!" She had tried to punch him in the jaw from her awkward angle in his arms.

"I could have done it myself!" Lily said crossly, but she knew in her heart that she really couldn't have. She didn't have the energy to make it up ten stairs by herself; it would be impossible for her to make it up to the fifth floor of the mansion. She relaxed slightly, her slim shoulders resting on his right arm.

"I know you don't mind it," Fabian said confidently as they reached the top floor. He kicked open her slightly ajar bedroom door and marched in. Someone—perhaps a house elf—had made the bed again with clean sheets and had closed her window, removing the ropes that she dangled out of her window last night. Pulling back the sheets, Fabian gently laid her on the soft, down mattress and pulled the blankets up over her. He walked to the window and dragged the curtains shut to block out the early morning light, and her room was dark, save for a tiny sliver of light that made its way through a miniscule gap in the curtains. He threw himself down on an armchair next to her bed and tilted his head back, exhaling a deep sigh.

"What, are you going to stay here and watch me sleep?" Lily asked incredulously.

"That is _exactly _what I plan to do, yes."

"Why—"

"We can't have you running off again like you did last night." He lifted his head up and looked at her through the dark room. "And after what's just happened, I don't want to risk anything. I need to make sure you're safe."

Lily sighed. "I'm still angry at you, Fabian."

"I know," he said with a trace of sadness in his voice. "I know you are." He looked down at her nightstand and picked up the diamond that sat on it. "You still have this?"

"Have what?" Lily squinted to see what Fabian was holding, her red hair fanned out on the pillow above her head. "Oh. That. The diamond. Yeah, I've still got it," she mumbled.

Fabian smiled distantly. "Good. Keep it." He reached over and stroked her hair, and tucked back a red strand that had found its way into her eyes. "Now go to sleep, Lily."

Within a few moments, she did, drifting away once more into the land of dreams as Fabian sighed and stared across the room to the window, his eyes occasionally straying back to Lily. He was here to protect her.

* * *

><p>James lay on his bed, staring up at his white-painted ceiling blankly as sunlight slowly began streaming in through the windows. He had managed to sneak back in a few minutes before without waking anyone up, though he heard some noise coming from Sirius's room, next to his. His thoughts raced from Lily, to Fabian, to Lily again. Everything that had happened in the past few hours was filling his mind and he could not sleep, especially not with dawn so quickly rising.<p>

He didn't have to worry long about that, though, because Sirius came barging in, without even bothering to knock.

"Where the hell were you, Prongs?" Sirius barked. James blanched at his loudness. He sat down on the edge of the bed next to the bespectacled boy. "I told your mum that you were held up because Dumbledore needed to talk to you about something, but she kind of stopped believing me after a few hours."

"Evans," James muttered.

"Yeah, I know, you were all upset about that when we left the meeting," Sirius softened a bit. "Did you find her or something?"

"You could say that. I ran into her on the street, by Westminster Bridge."

"You both walked from Belgravia to _Westminster Bridge_?" Sirius looked dubious. "That's a bit of a long way."

"Well, I went to the Leaky Cauldron first," James admitted. "I was trying to get drunk. I had something like four Firewhiskies and it did absolutely nothing."

"That's damn depressing, Prongs," Sirius rolled his eyes. "So that still doesn't really answer my question. Where _were _you?"

James sighed. "We went back to her house."

Sirius's jaw dropped. He looked to be at a complete loss for words. "You _what_?" he managed. "Why the bloody hell would you go back there? Damn it James, you both could have gotten killed or something. Dumbledore said it wasn't safe to go there. There could have been Death Eaters there or something."

"If you saw how she was acting, you would have gone with her, too," James said. "She looked destroyed. She didn't even really want me going with her, but I made her let me come along so I could help her if something happened."

Sirius closed his eyes for what looked like one pained moment and opened them again. "You're a good bloke," he said softly. "You're really good to her for doing that."

James thought for a moment. He hadn't particularly thought of himself as being a good man for what he had done. He had simply done what was necessary to keep her safe. Except for the part where he kissed her. Deciding against telling Sirius about that personal bit of information, he said, "Fabian showed up, Padfoot."

"_That_ wanker? What was he doing there?"

James groaned. "Molly went to go check on Lily and she wasn't in her bed so she went hysterical, apparently, and Fabian went out to go find her. Somehow, he knew exactly where to find her. We got in a shouting match on her bloody roof about how apparently I was being an irresponsible arse for not tying her up and bringing her back to him or something, and he chucked my wand into a hydrangea bush."

"You should have pushed him off the roof," Sirius snorted. "The world would be a better place that way."

Suddenly, without so much as a knock, the door to James's bedroom opened once more. James's mother, clad in a silk nightgown, was standing in the doorway, looking extremely irate. "James Harold Potter, you have some explaining to do," she said severely.

James made a face. "Mum, I needed to take a walk."

"The meeting ended at _ten thirty_, James!" she screeched. "You came back just now, and it's FIVE IN THE MORNING! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN FOR THE PAST SIX AND A HALF HOURS?!"

Sirius, by now, had gotten up and began edging towards the door. "You sit back down, young man," Eleanor Potter shouted. "You might as well be my son now, too, and you're in trouble for covering for James!"

James and Sirius exchanged looks. "Mum, it's just…stuff's going on with the order, and we ran into some trouble, and I just needed time on my own—" James began.

"I DON'T WANT TO HEAR YOUR EXCUSES!" she screamed over him. "THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE!" She glared at both boys. "Both of you aren't allowed to go out for the next week!"

"But Ellieee," Sirius whined.

"THAT GOES FOR YOU, TOO, SIRIUS ORION BLACK! " She was getting red in the face now. "I am very disappointed in both of you!" And with that final word, she turned on her heel and stormed out of the room.

They sat in silence for a minute. "Well, that went well," James said at last.

Sirius shrugged. "It's not as bad as what _my _mother would have done. That hideous donkey of a woman bloody hates me."

James knew what Sirius's mother was like, and found his statement to be quite true. "My mum loves you, though," he said. "She really does look at you like her own son."

"It's more than I can ask for."

Neither of them said anything for a while. James kept his eyes fixed on a growing patch of sunlight on the floor, deep in thought about kissing Lily and yelling at Fabian and walking through the streets at night and drinking in the darkened Leaky Cauldron. He wished the night had all just been a dream, but he knew that it wasn't. There was no possible way that it wasn't reality.

He and Sirius were both called back to attention at the sound of a bird tapping at the windowpane. An onyx owl was pecking at the window, a letter attached to its leg. Sirius got up and quickly opened the window, allowing the bird inside and detaching the parchment from it. Immediately, it flew away as quickly as it had come. It was addressed, in ornate script, "To J.P. and S.B."

Sirius walked back over to the bed slowly, opening the letter as he went. His eyes darted across the parchment, taking in the words scrawled on it. His grey orbs went wide.

"James," he said nervously, holding the letter out to his best friend. "Look at this."

James took it and looked at it. It read:

_Dear J.P. and S.B.,_

_For fear that this letter may be intercepted by our enemies, I thought it best to use initials instead of full names, though I highly doubt that any enemy of ours wouldn't be able to find out to whom this letter is really being sent. A dangerous turn of events has taken place concerning the newest member of our organization, and it is very important for you to come to our headquarters immediately to discuss these pressing matters. Be safe._

_Regards,  
>A.P.W.B.D.<em>

"It's from Dumbledore," James said wonderingly. "I wonder if it's got to do with me and her going back to her house or if…something else happened." His heart tightened at the thought.

"There's only one way to find out." Sirius was already striding towards the door. "Let's go."

"But my mum—"

"She'll understand. It's Order of the Phoenix stuff. This is bloody important!"

James followed Sirius out of the room and together they hurried downstairs, pulling on their shoes and making their way towards the front door to leave when they were intercepted by Eleanor.

"Where in Merlin's name do you two think you're going?" she chastised.

"Order of the Phoenix," James said quickly, opening the door. Sirius slipped out immediately. "It's an important meeting."

"At this hour of the morning? I'm sorry, you need to ask Dumbledore for a reason for this—"

"He already gave one," James called over his shoulder as he stepped outside. "Got to go, Mum, see you later!" With that parting statement, he shut the door behind him and linked arms with Sirius, Disapparating, for the second time in less than twelve hours, for Belgravia and the Prewett Mansion.

* * *

><p><em>AN: So guys, long time, no update? _

_I'm really, really sorry for the fact that it took me over a month (again) to update! In the time since then, I had fun in South Carolina (I actually outlined the next several chapters on the long car ride to get there, so it's rather ironic that it took me so long to write this), I got a job as a waitress, and I've procrastinated on summer work for school . Also, if you guys want to hear any disgusting stories of what goes on in the kitchen at restaurants, feel free to ask, although it's so horrendous I'm sure that you don't ACTUALLY want to know. It's really disgusting. I will never eat out at another restaurant again, for as long as I live. EVER._

_So I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! We got some Fabian/James conflicts going on, and it certainly seems like they're vying for that stupid alpha-male position the way that boys always do, hmm? __**I've got a poll up on my profile on which boy you prefer, James or Fabian. Go vote! **__I mean, it takes about fifteen seconds to do it, so why not?__It would mean the world to me if you left me a review. They are what motivates me to write more, and without them, I probably wouldn't have even made it this far. Thanks to all of you for your support!_

_Until next chapter,  
>The Silent Rain.<em>


	8. Reckless

Chapter Eight: Reckless

_You've got a knife-throwing kind of love,  
>But your silence cuts the deepest.<br>And I know I've made a mess of things,  
>And I'm sorry for all that.<br>Wish we could get the time back._

_-Vanessa Carlton_

* * *

><p>When Lily finally opened her eyes, there was sunlight streaming in through the curtains from the window adjacent to her bed. There were birds singing outside, chirping their music to arouse her from her slumber. Her sleep, though extremely deep, was brief; it felt to her as if she had been asleep for mere moments. Glancing at the clock beside her bed, she saw that it read 8 AM. She had slept for only a few hours. Too many nights and early mornings had passed this way, and she was starting to feel like she had forgotten what a normal night's sleep felt like.<p>

She sat up and peered around the room, and almost jumped when she saw Fabian sitting by the bed. He was clearly asleep, and his head was tilted back. His breathing was even and slow, and Lily couldn't help but notice that in sleep, he didn't look nearly as dangerous and impetuous as he was in action.

_I thought he said he was going to stay up and watch me sleep,_ she thought amusedly. _Looks like he was tired, too._

Lily silently swung her legs out of bed and tiptoed across the room towards the closet, where Fabian had, just yesterday, hung up Molly's old clothes for Lily to wear until she could get new ones. She yanked a random set of black robes off of a hanger and slipped out of the room to the bathroom, lightly closing the door behind her so as not to disturb Fabian. Every morning for the past couple days felt so dull and repetitive to her.

She turned on the faucet as she gazed at her reflection in the mirror. The dark rings under her eyes were getting worse and worse, and as she splashed cold water on her face, the mirror crooned to her in a throaty, feminine voice, "I think a beauty potion is in order for you, love. You look like you just got run over by the Knight Bus."

"Oh, shut up," Lily muttered irritably, drying her face off on a fluffy white towel and changing into Molly's robes. "You have no idea what I'm going through."

"No, I don't suppose I do." The mirror sounded offended by Lily's retort. "If you want to go on looking as ugly as a rusty doorknob for the rest of your life, young lady, you don't have to follow my advice."

Lily just rolled her eyes and exited the bathroom. She peered back into her bedroom to check on Fabian, and saw that he was still asleep in the armchair as before. She smiled, and stepped back into the hall. The diamond chandelier scintillated in the morning light, and the silence of the mansion was punctuated by the sound of distant shouting. Lily could barely pick up the men's voices, with the tones of women chiming in periodically. She furrowed her brow and tried to make out where the voices were coming from.

They were emanating from the narrow, side hallway she had sprinted down yesterday, while hiding from Molly, she realized. Curious, she began to walk slowly in that direction, listening closely as the voices gradually grew louder. She still could not make out the words that were being said, but as she drew nearer, she could tell that it was something of an argument. The hallway sloped upwards, just as she remembered it did yesterday, and before she knew it, she had wandered into the fifth floor of the library, and the voices now were perfectly distinct and Lily could decipher every word.

"You're insane!" Molly Prewett was shrieking from the library's first floor, where last night's Order of the Phoenix meeting had been held. "I don't know what the _hell _you thought you were doing last night! Why didn't you stop her? WHY?!"

"Molly, darling," came the placating, albeit tense, voice of Arthur Weasley. "Calm down, please—"

"I CAN'T CALM DOWN!" she shouted. "It's his fault that _my brother _had to go there to save her! And he just _left Fabian and Lily there! _They could have gotten killed! He has no respect for their lives! NONE!"

"I wasn't trying to get anyone killed, Molly," James Potter snapped. Lily's heart skipped a beat at the sound of his deep voice. "Your brother, on the other hand, was trying to kill _me—_"

"Don't you dare say that," Molly's voice sounded dangerous. "He was trying to save her, because you didn't stop her when her emotions got the better of her. It's your fault for letting her go, and if Fabian really did try to kill you, I can only wish now that he _managed it._"

"James had no intention of letting anyone get hurt," Dumbledore said soothingly.

"That's a ton of crap. He could have hurt _my family,_" Molly growled. Lily could only imagine how terrifying she looked at that point in time. She was quite a woman to be reckoned with. "And I won't stand for him putting my brother and Lily at risk. I want answers. I want to know why it is that my brother and Lily came stumbling back into this house in the early hours of the morning, covered in dirt and bearing the news that her house was _burning to the ground._"

The way the ginger-haired woman was blaming James for last night was frustrating Lily, who was still listening from the library's fifth floor, so deeply that she began to descend to marble staircase to give Molly a piece of her mind. She was stopped, however, by a hand on her shoulder and a deep voice coming from behind her.

"Where do you think you're going?"

Lily flinched and turned around. There was Fabian, looking tired and annoyed.

"Down there," she snapped, jabbing a finger down the several flights of stairs leading to the first floor. "I think I have a right to give them my point of view, seeing as they're chatting away about me and what happened."

"Actually, you don't," Fabian replied coolly. "Not yet, anyway."

"Why not?" Lily demanded indignantly. "They're talking about _me!_"

"Because I need to talk to you first." Fabian glared at her. Any camaraderie that they had managed to salvage after their fight last night was gone by the morning. "Firstly, why the hell didn't you wake me up? You have no idea how scared I got when I woke up and you weren't in the bloody room!"

"I didn't think it was a big deal," Lily huffed, crossing her arms. "Where would I have gone?"

"Oh, I don't know," Fabian said sarcastically. "Maybe you climbed out the window again, or swung up onto the roof of the house like some jungle woman, or started wandering around London like a lost puppy. Any combination of those."

"Shut it," she said irritably, and pushed his large hand off her shoulder, where it had lingered for a little too long. "It's not a big deal. Now, if you don't mind, I have matters to attend to." She hurried down the marble stairs, where the argument continued. With a frustrated sigh, Fabian followed her.

"They don't know what happened," Fabian called to her quietly. She was a couple steps ahead of him, and paused. "Not any of it."

"What do you mean?"

"I haven't told them anything. Not a word," he replied softly. "They don't know about the Death Eaters. All they know is what I told Gideon when we first came into the house, before I took you to your room, along with whatever else Potter's told them."

Lily stared at him. "So I have to tell them what happened, for the second day in a row?"

"_We._" Fabian smiled, with a touch of black humor. "_We _have to tell them what happened."

* * *

><p>When Lily made it to the library's first floor, she was greeted by the sight of the Order of the Phoenix, the quarrel still continuing, thought slightly hushed now. Dumbledore was sitting at the head of the mahogany table, with James on his right and Molly and Gideon on his left. Both of them looked extremely angry, and Dumbledore himself had a very somber look on his face. She noticed Sirius was standing in the far corner of the fairly-crowded room, flanked by Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. Lily hadn't known that the other two boys were members of the group as well; both of them were so mild-mannered that joining a vigilante group seemed almost out of character for them. Almost everyone in the room looked exhausted and sleep-deprived.<p>

The conversation stopped when they noticed Lily's arrival, with Fabian on her heels. As the room fell silent, all heads swiveled in her direction; no one spoke.

"Miss Evans," Dumbledore said at last, rising to his feet, "And Mister Prewett. We're so glad you're here."

Lily winced at his tone. He sounded extremely severe. She glanced at Fabian, who was now standing next to her at Parade Rest, like a soldier with his arms behind his back and his legs apart. His golden eyes were fixed in a death stare at James, who was staring back unflinchingly with unequivocal hate. Her gaze flicked around the room once more, and she saw Frank seated at the far end of the table with Alice Prewett at his side. She gasped at the sight of her best friend, and barely stopped herself from calling out to her.

_Alice, _she thought amazed at the other girl's presence. _What is she doing with the Order of the Phoenix?_

"Professor Dumbledore," Fabian replied finally, averting his eyes from James and turning to gaze at the white-haired gentleman. "There is a lot I have to tell you."

"Yes, I believe there is," Dumbledore said with a bow of his head. "Sit, please."

Fabian didn't need to be told twice. He grabbed Lily's arm and gently pulled her with him to sit with Gideon. She would have protested this ridiculously bossy treatment if the mood in the room weren't so somber, and she allowed herself to be guided in between the twins, and sat down.

"We've all been here for a couple hours now," Dumbledore addressed the newly-seated pair, especially watching Lily. "And we have had James's perspective on the events, before he left you and Fabian at your house. Now, _personal conflicts aside," _he stressed these words heavily, his eyes flicking between James and Fabian, "I would like to know what happened after he left, and how this led to the house burning down. Kingsley and Alastor have just returned from the house and verified that there is, in fact, nothing remaining of the Evans home but ashes, and I feel that the Order should know the full story before we plant a cover-up to tell to the Muggles and their police department."

For the second meeting in a row, as the rest of the Order took their seats at the table, Lily stood up and recounted the events. She had no idea how much James had told them. How much, in fact, should _she _say? The drunk man in Belgravia, the police officer on Westminster Bridge, the kiss she and James shared, the argument they had, the way she swung out the window onto her roof and hid from him, and the way Fabian had fought with James and thrown his wand into a hydrangea bush, all seemed too personal to tell the entire Order of the Phoenix.

_I guess it's not _that _essential to the story, _she decided. _I'll just glaze over those parts._

She briefly gave her take on the events, of how she had climbed out the window, into the street, and wandered around London.

"I had just wanted to be alone. I was wandering around, and I saw James as I was crossing Westminster Bridge," she elaborated. "He talked to me and I told him I was going back to my house, and I didn't want him to come with me."

"But why didn't he stop you?!" Molly interrupted furiously, lurching out of her chair and to her feet. "Why didn't he _do something?!"_

"Molly," Dumbledore said cautioningly, but there was no calming her down.

"As a member of the Order, SHE IS PART OF YOUR RESPONSIBILITY!" Molly was addressing James, who was staring at her stonily. "Both of you could have been killed! WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?!"

"I'm not eight years old, Mrs. Weasley," Lily raised her voice before James could respond to Molly for himself. "Believe it or not, I don't need people looking after me and following me around every day. I'm no one's responsibility but _my own, _and James couldn't have stopped me if he tried, and trust me, he did."

"Obviously he _didn't try hard enough then, did he?_" Molly growled, red in the face.

Lily was growing outright angry now. "What was he supposed to do, tie me up and bring me back here?"

"If it would have stopped you from going back there, THEN YES!"

"He was doing the right thing by coming back with me," Lily snapped. "Because I would have gone back without him anyway, and he helped me."

"He helped you?" Molly sneered. "_Helped _you by accompanying you to your possible death?"

Lily looked at her levelly. With a sudden, eerie calm in her voice, she said, "Yes. He helped me. He helped me come to terms with the fact that the two people who loved me most in my entire life were murdered, and their bodies are gone."

Molly stared, her mouth opening and closing like a goldfish's until she sat back down, shaking her head slightly. There was an awkward silence that followed their shouting match, and not a word was spoken.

"Now that that's cleared up for now…if you could continue your story, please, Lily," Dumbledore said quietly.

Lily shook her head slightly, as if to brush the argument off of her. "As I guess James told you, he came back with me, and there was nothing. Their bodies weren't there, but all the damage was. The Death eaters must have taken them, or done something with them. We just talked on my roof for a while, and then Fabian came and James Disapparated."

The library seemed to become even quieter now. Everyone, even Dumbledore, seemed to lean in a little closer to hear what the mystery of what had happened after James left, and how, exactly, it came to be that the Evans home was reduced to ashes.

Fabian and I stayed on the roof, and then…suddenly…" she crinkled her forehead. "He told me to get back inside the house." Lily looked down at Fabian, who was sitting next to her and smirking distantly, in a way that stated that whatever he was thinking about was quite far from funny. "He saw something, he said someone was coming, and we jumped in through the window. He told me to hide under the bed, and I did. There was a woman Death Eater in the house."

A collective gasp rose from the group, the loudest coming from Molly. Fabian's smirk deepened and cynicism overtook his face as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms darkly.

"I knew it," Molly whispered. "I knew something like this would happen."

"Who was it?" demanded Alastor Moody, from the other side of the room. "Did you know who it was?"

"It was—" Lily began, but Fabian interrupted her.

"Bellatrix Lestrange," he laughed without any joy. "Née _Black_."

There was a crash as a chair was knocked over. Sirius Black was on his feet now, the look on his face stricken with rage. "_What?_" he barked dangerously. "_Bella?_"

"That's what I said, wasn't it, Black?" Fabian said drily.

"But she's…" Sirius began, his voice shaking with anger. Remus, looking somber, repositioned the chair and grabbed his arm, attempting to pull him back into his seat. Sirius resisted and shook his hand off of him. "That can't be right, Prewett. You're making it up."

"This is obviously a very emotional topic," Dumbledore called over the sputtering gasps from Sirius. "But I would appreciate it if we could all allow Miss Evans to finish her story _without _distraction, please. Sit, Mr. Black. Sit." Sirius looked furious but acquiesced.

"I'll take over from here," Fabian said firmly, standing up and lightly pushing Lily back down. She stared up at him indignantly, and ignored the hand that was on her shoulder for the umpteenth time that morning: the hand that tried so hard to tell her what to do. She remained standing beside him. "Because at this point, Lily was hiding under her bed and didn't get to see much."

"Only because you _insisted_," Lily said hotly. "Don't talk down to me."

He rolled his eyes at her, and she thought her blood was going to boil. Giving up the war, she sat down in between Gideon and Fabian. Gideon, as per his usual self, had not uttered a word the entire time.

"I couldn't physically see her, because of the mask and all," Fabian went on, as if Lily had never offered up a retort. "But I know it was her. I called her 'Black,' but she corrected me and told me her name's _Lestrange _now. She asked me where Lily was, and she said she wanted to find her because…'some people just need to die, and that girl is one of them.'"

Lily grimaced and Gideon looked over at her out of the corner of his eye. "You're fine," Gideon murmured the first words she heard him speak since she and Fabian had stumbled back into the house, so quietly that only she could hear him. "You're alive, and we're gonna get her."

Fabian, not noticing his brother's words to Lily, proceeded with the rest of the story. "Anyway, she shot some Unforgivables at me and _missed,_ and proceeded to light the house on fire. Lily," he looked down at the redhead with some type of pride, "in the most brilliant maneuver I've seen in my life, rolled out from under the bed and Stunned her before she even knew what hit her."

Though moments ago Lily had been fighting the desire to smack Fabian for his arrogance and slight chauvinism, she couldn't help but blush at his compliment.

"She tried to put the fire out, but it was so bad that we had to jump out the window," Fabian was nearing the end of the story now. "And we ran to the trees behind her house." His tone became more analytical suddenly: more calculating and cold, and serious. "There must have been an Anti-Disapparition Jinx on the entire premises, and a strong one, too, to cover all of that area. It was powerful enough that it seemed like it would have taken two witches or wizards to do it, but knowing Lestrange's strength, it wouldn't surprise me too much if she did it on her own. As we ran to the forest, there were two more Death Eaters flying in on brooms, which I actually thought was odd." He wrinkled his forehead. "I don't understand why Bellatrix would come to the house by herself, even if she had backup on the way."

"Perhaps she thought Lily was there alone," Arthur Weasley offered, his wife twitching in fury and fright as she fought to contain herself.

"But did she even _know _that Lily was there? Was she waiting somewhere in the area and saw her arrive?" Fabian pushed his chair back and began pacing back and forth. "She _had _to have thought Lily was there alone, or she wouldn't have gone herself against both of us."

"Sit down, Fabian," Dumbledore spoke again, his tone serious. Fabian followed the order immediately. "This changes everything."

Fabian and Gideon nodded simultaneously, and Lily saw James hang his head. She knew what he was thinking: For the second time, he had left her, and she faced the Death Eaters without him. She wanted nothing more, at that moment, to run over and talk to him. More than she even wanted to go and talk to Alice, who had been staring at her the entire time, her glowing baby blues full of tears.

"I didn't know that bitch was a Death Eater," Sirius snarled from his end of the table. "I swear to Merlin, I'm going to fucking _kill her._"

"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, Black," Fabian said drily. "Isn't your whole _clan _like that?"

Lily, from her seat at the other end of the table, could see Sirius gritting his teeth. She kicked Fabian underneath the table.

"What?" Fabian whispered to her.

"Could you be a little less _callous?_" Lily muttered out of the side of her mouth.

"Hey, we may work together, but that doesn't mean I have to _like him,_" Fabian snorted quietly. "He's a little _twat._"

"Shut the hell up, Prewett," James snapped from where he sat. He had not heard Lily and Fabian's exchange, and was instead seething over the slight to his best friend. "Stop being such a prick."

"Oh, very original," Fabian shot back, as chattering began to commence between various members of the group. "Let me tell you, Potter, you must think you're the cleverest _little boy_ in the world."

Mad-Eye Moody slammed his wooden leg into the ground before (another) argument could brew. "I want you young lads to know," he gazed imperiously back and forth between Fabian and James, his electric-blue eye swiveling wildly in its socket. "That both of you are being court-martialed."

A stunned silence put an end to the talking. James looked bewildered, and Fabian looked stricken.

"_Court-martialed?_" James demanded. "We're being _court-martialed?_"

"What is this, the bloody _Royal Navy?" _Fabian added.

"It's the Order of the Phoenix, actually, since you seem to have forgotten," Lily muttered to him, earning herself a sharp elbow to the ribs.

"Yes, you're being court-martialed," Mad-Eye repeated coolly. "We have rules, as the Order of the Phoenix, and you both are about to get the punishment given to those who _break them._"

"Who the hell are we going to be judged by?" Fabian snapped. "We meet in my damn _house, _and you're going to punish _me_? What _for?!_"

"_You,_" Mad-Eye looked livid. "Had orders. BOTH OF YOU" –he roared so loudly that both boys jumped—"had orders, that NEITHER OF YOU SAW FIT TO FOLLOW!" Seeing that they were sufficiently cowed by him, he continued at a more normal volume. "The eldest members of the Order are going to form a tribunal, and we are going to hear your case. From there, we will decide what to do, and how to punish you."

"This is full of shit, Mad-Eye," Fabian looked angry. "I did what I had to do."

"You should punish me too, then, if we're talking about breaking rules," Lily interjected loudly. "I'm the reason all of this happened in the first place! They were trying to help me! It was my fault!"

Moody gave her an undecipherable look. "The only reason you aren't in trouble, young lady, is because you are new and do not yet know the rules we have. For now, you have a warning, and if you do something like this again, you will be in just as much trouble as Potter and Prewett. But the fact remains: everyone in the Order was told _not to let you go back to your house. _Not to GO WITH YOU, but to _NOT LET YOU GO IN THE FIRST PLACE!_"

"You both will meet us here tonight at five o'clock," Dumbledore said smoothly, cutting off Mad-Eye's tirade. "Elphias Doge," –a thin, greying man who smiled wanly at them—"Caradoc Dearborn," –a middle-aged man with receding, mouse-brown hair—"Minerva McGonagall," –Fabian and James groaned at the idea of being tried by their Transfiguration professor—"Mad-Eye, and myself will hear your cases, and we will decide what will be done."

"I can't _fucking believe this,_" Fabian muttered to Lily. "I don't get what the hell I'm in trouble for. I saved your life and for that I'm being put on _trial?_"

"I don't think it's fair that they aren't trying _me,_" Lily frowned angrily. "It's my fault that this happened and they're holding both of you responsible for my actions!"

"What, do you _want _to be in trouble?" Fabian looked incredulous.

"If you and James are, then I should be too!"

"But Mad-Eye is right," Gideon spoke softly, interrupting Lily mildly. "And so is Molly. You shouldn't have run off, but it's understandable because of how you felt. I ran like that, too, when I found out about my parents. Your thoughts and your feelings get the better of you, and it's hard to control, which we all can understand, especially me." He winced, and looked at Fabian. Lily's eyes flicked in between the twins, and in their gazes she saw a silent communion. Gideon's face was a mix of emotions—sadness, understanding, bitterness—and Fabian's was outright unreadable. "But there were people who could have stopped you, and one of those people is James. He saw you and knew where you were going, and even though you insisted on going, he could have done something. Yes, even if it meant tying you up and taking your wand," he continued quickly, when he saw Lily was going to complain. "Forcing you back here is nothing compared to what happened, with Bellatrix Lestrange and the Death Eaters showing up." He glared at his twin, and added, "And you're just as bad as Potter. You were a reckless fool for going after them. An absolutely reckless fool."

The meeting, at this point, seemed to be over, though no one made a move to leave. Instead, talking arose among the group, and people got up to talk to one another. Clearly, the past night's events were a game-changer. Lily stood up from her spot in between the twins, and looked over at James.

He was standing, too. He was not looking at her, but she could see the frustration on his face. His tension was almost tangible, though he was standing several meters away from her. She took in his expression; he ran a hand through his hair aggravatedly, as he had last night on her rooftop, and his glasses were sitting slightly too-low on his nose. A twinge of fire shot up and down her spine as she remembered, for a split second, their kiss on that roof. The memory brought back a wave of emotions. What had she been thinking? Hell, what had _he_ been thinking?

Lily longed to shake the thought from her head, and was saved by a pair of thin, feminine arms wrapping around her waist from behind.

"Oh Lily," came the high-pitched voice of Alice Prewett from behind her. She could feel Alice's face burying into her shoulder, and she sensed Frank's hulking presence as well. "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry."

Lily turned around and hugged her best friend. "I know," she murmured in reply. "But there's nothing to be done, I suppose."

"I heard about what happened from Frank just last night," Alice said, lifting her head from Lily's shoulder. "I begged him to let me come see you, and now this happened" –she wringed her hands agitatedly—"Oh, things are getting worse and worse every day and you almost got killed _twice!_" Alice looked like she was on the verge of tears. "_Merlin, _I have no idea what I'd do if without you, Lily. I honestly don't."

"But I'm here, Alice," Lily said, hugging her best friend even more tightly. Alice was taking this much harder than Lily herself had. "There's nothing to worry about, and I'm okay."

"Nothing to worry about?" Frank snorted drily from behind the pair. Lily glanced up at him and saw him, looking expressionless with his arms folded over his chest. "There's _a damn lot _to worry about, actually."

Lily gave him a filthy look and mouthed, "_Shut up"_ at him. His sarcasm would do nothing to calm down Alice, and he should have known that.

"Come on," Lily released Alice from the embrace at last and wrapped an arm around her shoulders instead, glaring one last time at Frank, though she knew she would forgive his tactlessness in moments. "Let's go to the kitchen and get some tea. Merlin knows you need some for your nerves."

* * *

><p>"God DAMN IT!" Sirius swore. He was standing in the corner of the library, with Remus, James, and Peter. The three of them looked somber, while Sirius shook with nearly-uncontrollable rage. "That crazy bitch. I can't be related to someone as bloody<em> evil <em>as her. I can't be. She's crazy. She's insane."

"Sirius, calm down," Remus said as placatingly as he could, though his eyes were disturbed. "I know she's your cousin, but—"

"I can't be related to her," Sirius repeated, his voice quivering, his jaw set with anger. "She isn't my cousin. I swear to Merlin, she isn't. I already got thrown out of the family, and I never wanted to hear from any of them ever again. I thought I wouldn't, either, but now this happened. THIS!" He took a deep breath. "I always knew she was this dark, hateful person, and she always just ate up that Muggle-hating drivel that our—her" –he corrected himself quickly— "family forced down her throat since her bloody _birth,_ but I never thought she'd join Voldemort."

James just stood there silently, his arms folded across his chest as he stared down at the marble floor. He saw, out of the corner of his eye, Peter glancing at him furtively, as if he wanted to say something to him but could not conjure up the proper words. James himself wanted to say something to his friends, say something to console Sirius, but he wanted to forget everything that had happened to him. Too much had happened to him in the past couple days, and he needed nothing more than to clear his thoughts.

Sirius sat down on a nearby chair, resting his elbows on his knees and burying his face in his hands. "I hate everything," he mumbled. "I've got to apologize to Evans."

"What do _you _have to apologize to her for?" James spoke finally. Sirius glanced up to look at him. "You're not the one who snogged her and then _left her on a roof _with the most irresponsible wanker in England, just to fight off murderous Death Eaters about twenty minutes later."

"You _snogged her?!" _Peter ogled at James, at last finding words to say.

"You _what_?" Remus echoed, raising his eyebrows slightly. "Last I checked, she hated you."

"Things are different now," James said shortly, collapsing onto a chair next to Sirius. "I'm just as confused as you are, Moony, except the difference between you and me is that I'm being court-martialed and you're not." He ignored the look that Remus was giving him, and instead shifted his focus back to Sirius. "Look, Padfoot. You have nothing to be sorry for. There's nothing you could have done."

"I could tell you the same thing," Sirius replied, his voice muffled by his hands. It sounded as if he were about to cry. "But I know you still blame yourself for this, so I guess we're in the same boat."

James saw Remus and Peter exchange a look. This was their first Order of the Phoenix meeting for weeks, and they had missed the drama of the last few meetings. He realized that it was likely a lot of information for them to handle, but a part of him was frustrated. He didn't want to have to explain everything to them. Not now.

"Sirius, none of this is your fault," James said as calmly as he could. "And hell, at least you haven't done anything to run the risk of getting kicked out of the Order of the Phoenix."

"Yeah, well," Sirius lifted his head. "I still have this guilt hanging over me, Prongs. This fucking _guilt._" He surveyed the room, still crowded with Order members, talking amongst themselves about the happenings of the past few days and the dark turns that had been taken. "Do you know where Evans went?"

"I saw her talking to Alice Prewett a few couple minutes ago," Peter piped up. It was clear from his expression that he was relieved to enter the conversation. "They just left together."

"Do you want to go find her?" Remus asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Yes," James answered for Sirius, already starting to move through the crowd of people towards the door. "I've got to talk to her. I've got to tell her I'm sorry for everything."

"James, you've got nothing to be sorry for," Remus grabbed James's arm before he could get too far away. "Seriously, give her some time. She's probably just as upset as you are."

"I want to go talk to her, too," Sirius jumped to his feet, going to stand next to his bespectacled best friend. "Come on, Prongs."

"I'm trying to be reasonable here," Remus said, taking a deep breath. "Both of you keep blaming yourselves when it's _not your fault this happened. _You don't need to apologize to her and she's probably just as, if not more, worked up as both of you, and I think all of you need to take some time to calm down before you do anything."

"All we want to do is talk to her, Moony," Sirius glared. "Come on, James. Let's go find her."

The pair were about to make their way towards the door (with Remus and Peter in tow) when James heard a familiar voice from behind him. A familiar voice that sent a chill of anger down his spine.

"Potter."

Fabian was standing a few feet away from him. His gaze was fixed on James, staring at him.

"What do you want, Prewett?" James asked tiredly. Fabian was the last person in all of Great Britain that he wanted to see at that moment, and he would have given all of the money in the Potter's bank account at Gringotts to get away from him.

"We need to talk," Fabian said, folding his arms. "Alone."

"What the hell do you need to talk to him about that you can't say in front of us?" Sirius barked.

"Things that aren't your business, Black," Fabian replied smoothly. "We need to talk, James."

James was slightly taken aback by the sudden switch from his surname to his first name. "Why are you so personal all of a sudden?" he demanded defensively.

"Because this is serious business," Fabian's eyes blazed. "A moment, _please, _if you don't mind."

James began to move in Fabian's direction, away from his friends, when Sirius grabbed him and hissed, "_Where do you think you're going? You shouldn't give that jerk the time of day, Prongs, let alone a 'moment!'_"

"I'll be fine, Padfoot," James said, extricating his arm from Sirius's grasp. "If I'm not back in ten minutes, you can send out a search party in case he's killed me or something."

Sirius shook his head at his best friend's sarcasm, but James was already gone, walking away with Fabian, before he could say another word.

Remus stared after James and Fabian as they strode off through the crowded room towards the door. "Is it bad that I think there really _is _a chance that Prewett will try to kill him?" he asked to no one in particular, looking rather perturbed.

"Don't worry, Moony," Sirius sighed, collapsing back down onto his chair, "I don't doubt it, either."

* * *

><p>James had never really walked through the Prewett house before; of course, he knew his way from the front door to the bottom floor of the library, but he had never seen the rest of the home. Though James himself had come from an extremely wealthy family, he was still rather impressed by the grandeur of the mansion that Fabian lived in. It rivaled the Potter's manor in almost every regard, though the interior was slightly more unkempt than his own home. James partially attributed this to the fact that both Mr. and Mrs. Prewett were dead, and the thought caused a pang of sympathy in his heart.<p>

They had been walking through the halls of the home for a few, painfully silent minutes when James finally asked, "Where are we going?"

"My room," Fabian said simply. "So no one can interrupt us."

"Why are you doing this?" James's brow furrowed. "And why the hell is it so confidential?"

"We need to talk about Lily," Fabian lowered his voice. The hallway turned sharply to the left and Fabian opened the single door at the end of the hall, entering the room. "Come on."

James tentatively stepped over the threshold, and Fabian shut the door and locked it behind him with a soft click. The royal blue room was illuminated with the bright morning sunshine, and Fabian gestured toward an armchair. "Have a seat, make yourself at home."

James sat down. "Why are you being so nice to me, Prewett?" he asked bluntly. "If I'm not mistaken, a few hours ago you were trying to kill me."

"I'm not being nice to you," Fabian corrected him, smirking. "I'm just not being mean to you. There's a difference." He sat down on his bed, swinging his legs back and forth like a little boy. "Now really, we need to talk about Lily."

"What about her?" James asked defensively.

"We can't fight over her," Fabian said, suddenly becoming serious again. "I know you like her—"

"Damn right, I like her," James cut him off. "And I don't like whatever it is you're doing to her."

"I'm not doing _anything_ to her, Potter." Annoyance was rising in Fabian's voice. "I'm trying to keep the relationship between her and me professional."

"_Relationship?_" James snorted derisively. "And you didn't strike me as being too professional last night."

Fabian took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, clearly struggling to keep his composure. "I got worked up, okay? What I'm trying to say, Potter, is that while we both may have feelings for her, I don't want them to get in the way of Order of the Phoenix business."

"You have feelings for her?!" James looked incredulous. "You've known her for, what, three days?"

"It doesn't matter how long I've known her for, and that's not the point."

"Then what _is _the point, Prewett?" James demanded. "After everything you've said and done in the past twenty four hours, you expect me to suddenly be civil with you and accept whatever it is you're trying to tell me to do?"

"I don't _expect _you to do anything." Fabian was beginning to lose his patience. "But as long as Lily lives in my house, she's my responsibility."

"Stop treating her like a baby," James said irritably. "She's seventeen, for the love of Merlin, and trust me, she hates it when people talk down to her, the way you do _all the time. _You're not her father, and half the time you talk to her like she isn't capable of helping or protecting herself."

"_You _don't seem to think she's too capable of protecting herself either, especially when you went back to her house with her under the guise of _saving her,_" countered Fabian. "And Dumbledore told Gideon and me to watch her and keep her safe. I think that's reason enough to, in _your words, _'treat her like a baby.'"

"But do you think she really actually wants that?"

"Probably not," Fabian shrugged rather nonchalantly. "But it doesn't exactly matter whether she wants it or not, in this case."

"You're impossible," James got up to leave. "I've had enough of you."

"No." Fabian jumped to his feet and blocked the door before James could even take a single step towards the exit. "We're not done yet."

"Are you serious?" James threw up his hands and returned to his chair. "Look Prewett, I don't want to talk to you. I've got shit I have to deal with and you're holding me up. All we've done is argue and I have no damn clue what you're trying to get at here."

"Okay, I'll be direct then," Fabian said, looking serious as he sat back down on his bed. "We both have feelings for her. I'm not obligated to like you, and you're not obligated to like me, either. As a matter of fact, I think you're an asshole who doesn't know how to give up on a girl that hates you." He continued before James could issue a retort to his jibe. "But regardless of my opinion of you, we have to get along and we can't let her come between us. You see what happened this time? If we hadn't fought the way we did, this crap with the Death Eaters and Lestrange wouldn't have happened. You, Lily, and I would have left, her house wouldn't have burned to the ground, and me and her wouldn't have almost died. On top of that," he added emphatically, "You and I wouldn't be standing trial tonight."

James closed his eyes slowly and leaned his head back against the wall behind him. Fabian did have a point, and he recognized that. "I'll get along with you for the sake of the Order, Prewett. But you'll be spending much more time with her than I will, and if I get wind that you've done _anything _bad to her, the Order be damned, and I will fucking _kill you._"

"And vice versa," Fabian said with a slight nod of his head. "I see we have an agreement."

"I just can't believe you like her," James huffed. "You've only known her for a few days."

"And you've known her for seven years, and she's hated you for the duration of all of them," Fabian replied coldly. "I'm older than you, as well as more mature, and I can offer her much more than you can. She has a lot to forgive you for."

"Prewett. You are _one. Bloody. Year. _Older than me," James stressed. "_Please _stop playing that card."

"But you don't deny that I'm more mature than you," Fabian looked entertained. "Which is, of course, true. Now if we could end this ridiculous drivel, that would be lovely."

"You started it," James muttered with an eyeroll. "I thought you said we were going to try to get along."

"Let me revise that proposition," Fabian said slowly. "We won't fight in _front of her. _But Potter, if you do something I don't like, trust me, you'll hear from me as soon as I can get you alone."

"If only she could see what an arrogant, two-faced asshole you are," James snapped, rising to his feet and heading towards the door. "She would despise you."

Fabian smiled joylessly. "I think, James, those are the exact words she's used to describe you."

James paused. The fire-haired boy was, in fact, correct, and he knew it. Perhaps, he thought, he and Fabian had more in common than he ever wanted to admit. "I've changed."

"That's what you want to think," Fabian said, not moving from his perch on his bed as James unlocked the door. "But everyone wants to think they've improved. Everyone wants to believe that they're really some great person inside. You in particular, Potter, think you're some type of Godsend to save the damsel in distress from her sorrow, when you're really just a desperate teenager with the hero syndrome."

"Whatever, Prewett. Whatever," James opened the door and glanced back at Fabian. "We have a truce, but only for the sake of the Order of the Phoenix, and only in front of Lily. I still hate you."

"Boohoo, and I still hate you, Potter," Fabian said sarcastically. "Go run off and chat with the only girl that doesn't think you're God's gift to women."

James ignored him and stepped out into the hallway. He was about to close the door behind him when he thought of something.

"By the way, _Fabian,_" James turned around and faced the inside of the room, staring at Fabian, who was still sitting on the edge of his bed. "I kissed her, and trust me, she kissed me back. I wouldn't be too confident in saying she still hates me." He turned on his heel and strode away, unable to see the sudden, dark look of anger that crossed Fabian Prewett's face. "See you at the court-martial tonight."

* * *

><p><em>AN: Well, I'm certainly way overdue for an update. I swear I'm still around, and I haven't abandoned FF! I've been so busy with school…as usual. Ugh. Trust me, it's not fun. I'm almost done with senior year of high school already! It's scary to think that the last time I updated, it was still summer vacation! Yikes. I'll try to update sooner, because the next chapter should be eventful. Please review! I'm so sorry it took me so long, but trust me, I'm not going anywhere. Don't forget to check out my story Tender Fire while you wait for an update, lovelies! :3_

_The Silent Rain_


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